The California Highway Patrol conducted its annual Maximum Enforcement Period for the Thanksgiving holiday between November 27 to December 1.

During this time, there were quite a few reported collisions in both Bishop and Bridgeport CHP’s jurisdiction. The combined amount of total crashes in the four day period was twenty-three.

The Bishop Area CHP reported thirteen total accidents, with three of them involving injury. Out of the thirteen total crashes, eight of them were non-injury collisions. Additionally, nearly every reported accident was weather related.

The California Highway Patrol in the Bishop area also documented three DUI arrests during the MEP, with one DUI crash occurring.

As for the Bridgeport Area CHP, their office reports that during their Maximum Enforcement Period, they had ten accidents. Surprisingly enough with all the inclement weather in the Eastern Sierra, none of the reported accidents involved injury.

Although there were only three DUI arrests through the Thanksgiving holiday period in the Eastern Sierra, that number skyrockets when looking at the statewide statistics. In the first thirty hours of the MEP, there were a reported 314 arrests involving impaired driving. Additionally, eight people died in collisions because of driving under the influence during the four days.