As Maryland drivers hit the roads for Thanksgiving week travel, and many imbibe in cocktails and wine at dinner, law enforcement and crime experts are expecting a dangerous mix.

Auto club AAA anticipates that more than 1.5 million Marylanders will travel for the holiday this year. An estimated 91% will journey by car, piling children, pets and suitcases into their vehicles before hitting the streets.

Joining them on the road this holiday season: drunk drivers. And more of them than during a typical week, experts say.

In each of the past three years, the week of Thanksgiving has ranked in the top 10 for traffic stops that lead to DUI arrests, a Banner analysis of Maryland traffic stop data found.

Last year, 53 people were arrested across the state for driving impaired — more than in any other week of 2024. Turkey Day alone tied for the third-most DUI arrests of any day last year, outpacing typically boozy holidays like Saint Patrick’s Day, New Year’s Eve and July Fourth.

Experts say this uptick fits a pattern: Impaired-driving trends spike during the same seasons and around the same holidays, year after year.

“This has been with us for as long as we’ve had vehicles and been driving,” said Jeffrey Michael, a transportation researcher at the Johns Hopkins University. “It’s very predictable.”

Myriad factors contribute to the jump: Travel explodes over the holidays, increasing the number of vehicles on the road. Social gatherings rife with alcohol abound. And more police tend to patrol the busier roads during the boozier celebrations.

“When you have lots and lots of police on patrol, you’re going to touch more of the people who are doing something they aren’t supposed to do,” said Greg Midgette, a professor at the University of Maryland’s school of criminology and criminal justice.

Last year marked a post-COVID peak for impaired driving during Thanksgiving week. Amid 2020’s stay-at-home orders and decreased traffic enforcement, the week ranked 39th.

Midgette theorized that the 2024 Thanksgiving week could be a symptom of a continued post-pandemic rebound: Starved for social connection and familiar traditions, revelers are making a stark break from COVID-era isolation.

“As a scientist, I don’t know,” the researcher said. “As a person who experienced the travails of the pandemic, [the fact] that we swung back aggressively towards socialization and sort of risky behaviors — there’s something to that to me.”

Police departments throughout the state will have officers out trying to keep the roads free from impaired drivers. Last week, the Montgomery County Police Department launched its annual holiday task force — a coalition of officers from multiple agencies dedicated to detecting impaired drivers from mid-November to early January that was first deployed in 1998.

Captain Warren Jensen, director of the department’s traffic operations division, said resources devoted to DUI enforcement “quadruple” while the task force is active.

“Some of these guys have waited 11 months to be able to come back and do this on the team,” Jensen said. “Officers out of the gate just come out hot, and they are ready to make an impact on the amount of serious and fatal collisions we have.”

Jensen said task force members alone made 244 DUI arrests during last year’s holiday enforcement push.

Statewide arrest totals indicate that agencies around Maryland share that focus this time of year: During the week of Thanksgiving in both 2023 and 2024, more than three out of every five arrests made after a traffic stop were for impaired driving.

In the 365 weeks from 2018 to 2024, that happened eight times total.

Enforcement pushes like these go beyond just clearing dangerous motorists off crowded roads, experts say — they’re key parts of the wide-ranging strategy needed to address the sheer scale of harm caused by impaired driving.

“Even as catastrophic as fentanyl and illicit opioids and methamphetamine have been to the country in terms of public health and safety costs, alcohol is by far the most expensive drug from a societal perspective,” said Midgette. “The social costs of alcohol are on the order of a quarter to a third of a trillion dollars a year in the United States.”

Maryland recorded at least 212 fatal crashes involving at least one impaired driver last year, according to Maryland State Police data. Four of the nine fatal crashes during Thanksgiving week 2024 were reported to have involved someone who was impaired.

Jensen said he and his officers view each DUI arrest as a potential tragedy avoided. The same goes for every would-be impaired driver who chooses to stay off the road, knowing police will be out in force.

Holiday drinkers have other options to make it home, he said.

“DUI is a 100% preventable crime, right? There’s just no two ways about that,” Jensen said. “While you have a sober mind, you plan for a ride, you plan for an Uber. It has gotten so easy.”