Just two days after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey called for a crackdown on wrong-way drivers, the first offender of the new year was caught along Interstate 17 in Phoenix.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Cameron Lee said a trooper spotted the driver around 3 a.m. on Wednesday driving south on the interstate's northbound lanes.
"This vehicle was not able to get very far before we were able to get it stopped," Lee said.
The trooper took the 25-year-old male driver into custody.
"We did a DUI investigation on the driver and confirmed that he was in fact driving impaired," he said.
Lee said his department supports the governor's proposal for passing new legislation making wrong-way driving a felony, whether or not there's an accident.
The last report on wrong-way driving by the Arizona Department of Transportation showed nearly 270 wrong-way drivers between 2004 and 2014.
Those involved in collisions were 24 times more fatal than other crashes and two-thirds of those drivers were driving intoxicated.
