.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... The fact there were a thousand fewer DWI arrests filed in Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court last year shows how statistics can sometimes be misleading. With bars, nightclubs and entertainment venues closed throughout much of the COVID-19 pandemic and less overall traffic, police filed 1,044 fewer DWI cases in the metro court than in 2019. But at the same time, Bernalillo County had 82 more DWI-related crashes last year than in 2019, up from 483 to 565 in 2020. And the percentage of crashes that are DWI-related so far this year – 35.6% – is up from 29.8% in 2020 and 16.3% in 2019. New Mexico banned drive-up window liquor sales in 1998. We require first-time offenders convicted of drunken driving to get an ignition interlock on their vehicle for a year. And it is promising that in the last legislative session our lawmakers banned the sale of miniature bottles of liquor for off-site consumption effective July 1. Those drink-on-the-go little bottles have stirred up big troubles for too long, not to mention littering roadways.