The city had 12.2 deaths per 100,000 residents per year over the last three years, making it nearly twice as deadly per-resident as the second most dangerous city, Lakeland

SARASOTA — A community that was tagged in recent years for a high percentage of residents who self-identified as binge drinkers, Sarasota also is atop another just-released report of the most dangerous cities in Florida for DUI deaths.

The city averaged 12.2 deaths per 100,000 residents per year over a recent three-year period, making it nearly twice as deadly as the second most dangerous city, Lakeland, according to the financial site ValuePenguin, which is part of the online lending exchange Lending Tree Inc.

Sarasota had the largest leap in DUI deaths over the course of the study, which tallied the total number of fatalities caused by DUI-related crashes reported by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

ValuePenguin, which examined statistics for 180 cities across Florida, found that 73 percent more people were killed in Sarasota from 2015 to 2017 compared with the previous three years.

North Port had the second highest DUI related deaths among other cities in the region, at 1.74. Venice was at 1.61 and Bradenton at 1.35, the ValuePenguin study found.

The Sarasota Police Department reported 15 fatal alcohol-related crashes from 2015 to 2017.

In a 2015 study, Sarasota County had the highest percentage of residents who self-identified as binge drinkers, meaning they had five drinks on a single occasion in the last 30 days for a man, or four drinks in the same scenario for a woman, according to the examination by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, a global health research group housed at the University of Washington.

Drinking and then getting behind the wheel resulted in the deaths of 839 Floridians in 2017, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported.

“Impaired driving is a public health epidemic,” said Larry Coggins, executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving's West Central Florida chapter. “The fact that Sarasota can remain so high is alarming, but it’s not from a lack of enforcement.”

The Florida Highway Patrol, Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, the Sarasota Police Department and other agencies have all made extensive DUI enforcement and education prevention efforts in recent years. Local and statewide efforts also have tried to improve alcohol treatment systems and tighten penalties associated with driving under the influence.

But as the number of people who live and drive in Florida continues to rise alongside the number of illegal opioid and prescription drug users, spotting impaired drivers is an ever-changing cat-and-mouse game, said Tim Bales, a traffic unit officer with the Sarasota Police Department.

“It’s not just alcohol anymore,” said Bales, who has been with the department 19 years. “It’s opioids, prescription drugs, marijuana and a whole lot of other things. That makes spotting impaired drivers more difficult.”

Marijuana, opioids and prescription drugs are more likely to be found in drivers killed in vehicular crashes than alcohol, a recent study by the Governors Highway Safety Association found.

But those items are especially difficult for law enforcement officers to detect because, unless there is evidence in the vehicle during a traffic stop, these drugs often do not show up on a field sobriety test, Bales said.

“So a lot of it comes down to getting officers on the road, and training them to know what to look for.”