Extra DWI Patrols Begin Wednesday in Minnesota Through Labor Day Weekend

(KNSI) – Minnesota law enforcement agencies will step up impaired driving patrols starting Wednesday, and state officials brought in a man arrested for DWI to explain what that decision cost him.

Corey, a Twin Cities man who asked that his last name not be used, was arrested in 2023 after leaving a housewarming party. He said he knew he’d had too much to drink, so he pulled over on Highway 36 in Roseville. He called his wife, panicking. Someone else called 911. The next thing he remembers is a trooper tapping on his window with a flashlight.

No one was hurt. The consequences came anyway.

“It cost me a job, a friendship, and maybe most painfully, it damaged the trust of the people I love,” Corey said. “All of that when an Uber would have cost me about $45.”

He said he spent years watching impaired driving ads and thinking it would never be him.

“The most difficult truth I’ve had to accept is that it wasn’t any different from the people in those commercials I’d seen,” he said. “I was one decision away from becoming one of them.”

Minnesota Department of Transportation Department of Public Safety

Corey said the arrest pushed him toward mental health treatment and a 12-step recovery program.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Traffic Safety is coordinating extra enforcement statewide from August 19th through September 7th. The campaign is funded through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which pays overtime for nearly 300 law enforcement agencies across Minnesota.

According to the Department of Public Safety, 62 people have died in alcohol-related crashes on Minnesota roads so far this year. Another 179 have been seriously injured as of July 13th, and troopers and officers have made 13,670 DWI arrests. From 2020 through 2025, 815 people were killed and 2,380 seriously injured in alcohol-related crashes, an average of 136 deaths a year.

Minnesota’s legal blood alcohol limit is 0.08, but drivers can be arrested below that. A DWI can cost a driver their license for up to a year, thousands of dollars and jail time.

Officials are asking drivers who see someone they believe is impaired behind the wheel to call 911.

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