LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The Memorial Day weekend once again saw a large number of fatalities and drunk driving arrests statewide and around the region.

The California Highway Patrol instituted its Memorial Day Maximum Enforcement Period, which ran from 6 p.m. Friday, May 24, to 11:59 p.m. Monday, May 27.

During that time period, the CHP reported that it investigated 21 fatal collisions statewide, which resulted in the deaths of 25 people.

The agency said that nearly 50 percent of those killed during the Memorial Day weekend crashes were not wearing a seat belt.

This year’s number of Memorial Day weekend fatal collisions statewide dropped by 9 percent, with the number of deaths down by 8 percent compared to last year, according to the CHP.

In the Northern Division, which covers 13 Northern California counties including Lake, there were two crashes resulting in two deaths, the CHP said.

One of those fatal wrecks occurred on Highway 20 in Lake County near Nice shortly after 11:30 p.m. on Memorial Day, when Josh Anthony Calderon, 29, of Santa Paula and Nice crashed his motorcycle and subsequently was run over by two vehicles, as Lake County News has reported.

Statewide, the CHP reported that it made 1,099 arrests for DUI over the Memorial Day weekend.

In the Northern Division, there were 47 arrests for DUI, and the CHP said the number of DUI arrests rose by nearly 4 percent over 2018.

Clear Lake Area CHP Officer Joel Skeen said the CHP had seven DUI arrests in Lake County during the Memorial Day weekend, a number he said didn’t include statistics from the Lakeport or Clearlake police departments.

One of the local CHP’s DUI arrests was for a crash on Saturday night near Blue Lakes, when Shana Lee Smith, 42, of Clearlake was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol following a solo-vehicle wreck that injured her and her passenger.

Lakeport Police Chief Brad Rasmussen said his agency had one DUI crash and arrest on Friday evening following a three-car crash in the city’s downtown. There was just one injury, a complaint of pain.

In the city of Clearlake, the Clearlake Police Department reported having a total of four crashes during the Memorial Day weekend, two resulting in injury and the other two being noninjury. None appeared to be related to DUI, based on its Citizen RIMS reporting program.

The Clearlake Police Department also reported that it had two DUI arrests during the holiday weekend.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.