Police tell council DUI enforcement numbers fell since COVID; task forces, training and data sharing cited as remedies

Traffic and patrol leaders briefed the Montgomery County public safety work session on March 3, 2025, about holiday DUI task‑force results and ongoing efforts to detect and deter impaired driving. Speakers described a combination of operational task forces, expanded training and data‑sharing gaps that limit program evaluation.

Assistant Chief Dave McBain (Field Services Bureau) said the county has seen a decline in DUI enforcement since pre‑COVID years in part because staffing and training were disrupted during the pandemic and newer officers have had less field experience. McBain described a departmental effort to re‑introduce intensive SFST refresher training (referred to in the briefing as "Bridal" training) and to require ARIDE training for officers making impaired‑driving assessments.

Warren Jensen, director of the county police traffic operations division, explained how the roadside impairment process uses Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (horizontal gaze nystagmus, walk‑and‑turn, one‑leg stand), ARIDE for more advanced observations, and — where available — oral‑fluid screening devices as a non‑evidentiary roadside tool to corroborate observations. "If the SFSTs are fine... we don't have the probable cause to arrest somebody," Jensen said, adding that oral‑fluid devices are not currently evidentiary and that blood testing remains the legal evidentiary standard, with testing performed by the Maryland State Police toxicology lab.

The briefing covered legalization and testing challenges for cannabis. Staff said Maryland has no agreed per‑se nanogram threshold for cannabis impairment and that courts often hesitate to treat a positive cannabis blood test as proof of impairment without more corroborating evidence. That complicates prosecutions for polysubstance crashes and contributes to underreporting when alcohol is present and toxicologists prioritize alcohol testing.

Jensen described the county's Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) program and its limits: the county has about 18 DREs and would benefit from more to reduce evaluation delays because DRE assessments add roughly an hour to case processing. A patrol representative told the committee that an average DUI stop and processing can occupy about an hour of an officer's time, a significant portion of a shift.

On policy questions, a council member asked about HB 105 (ignition interlocks for first‑time offenders). Traffic staff said interlock usage and event data typically reside with the Motor Vehicle Administration and interlock vendors (MBA), making it hard for law enforcement to measure program effectiveness from roadside encounters; staff suggested MVA or MBA should be sources for aggregate tracking statistics.

Staff also highlighted enforcement tools and interventions: holiday and summertime task forces, DUI court as an alternative intervention (with high recidivism rates), compliance checks for underage service through the alcohol beverage services (ABS) program, and community partnerships for sober ride programs. McBain said the county had more than 600 open warrants for DUI tied to people who did not show up for court, and recommended exploring warrant sweeps with state funds to improve accountability.

Council members requested more overlapping data that would allow staff to correlate task‑force deployments and interventions with crash and fatality outcomes. Staff committed to pursue additional data sharing and to return with more analysis.