OLYMPIA – Ahead of the Super Bowl last week, the Washington State Patrol announced that the agency would increase its patrols in search of intoxicated drivers.
The last time the Seahawks won the Super Bowl, the agency said, Washington saw a “steep increase” in impairment-related collisions, and the last time the team made it to the big game, there was a rise in collisions and distracted driving .
However, faced with a backlog of more than 16,000 samples, it could take the state toxicology lab until Thanksgiving 2027 to determine if drivers pulled over on Super Bowl Sunday were actually intoxicated, and what substance was in their systems, based on data showing WSP’s average turnaround time for DUI test samples.
On average, the state toxicology lab takes between one year and 21 months to test a blood sample and determine whether a driver was intoxicated.
Bradley Lane, state traffic safety resource prosecutor, told members of the Senate Law and Justice Committee last month that Washington is well behind most of the country. The average wait time nationally before a sample is tested is 45 days.
The delay in Washington burns up a significant portion of a crime’s statute of limitations, potentially putting the ability to prosecute a case in jeopardy, Lane said.
Washington law requires most drunken driving charges to be filed within two years of an arrest.
“I think that speaks to the gravity of the situation,” Lane said.
It’s an issue that lawmakers have tried to address for years.
Last year, the Legislature appropriated $3 million to the WSP to purchase equipment and hire additional staff at the state toxicology lab. As part of the funding, the agency is also required to produce semiannual reports detailing how they’ve spent the funding and how the processing times compare to June 2025.
The first report, published in December, showed that little progress was made last summer. According to the report, the backlog increased by nearly 400 tests, to 16,870 , from June to October of last year.
Under current state law, the analysis of a blood or breath test must be done according to methods approved by the state toxicologist and by someone who possesses a valid permit.
On Friday, the Washington Senate unanimously approved legislation aimed at further addressing the backlog by allowing tests to be analyzed by labs certified under certain international standards.
The bill will head to the House of Representatives for consideration.
“We all know our legal system has a lot of bottlenecks,” sponsor state Sen. Keith Wagoner, R-Sedro Woolley, said Friday. “And we can’t fix all of them, but we can fix one today at very little cost to the state.”
Under the legislation, local governments would be allowed to accept private donations to pay for testing at internationally certified testing labs, though they would not be required to do so.
“Washington State Patrol’s laboratory is overtasked, understaffed, and they have thousands of tests waiting in a line to be examined,” Wagoner said. “Not every municipality will take advantage of this, but there is enough that will reduce the backlog significantly, which will help every jurisdiction in this state.”
Seattle city Attorney Erika Evans was among those who testified in support of the legislation during a Jan. 13 hearing in the Senate Law and Justice Committee. During her testimony, Evans said the nearly two-year delay means some of those pulled over for DUI have been pulled over for a second one while their first is still waiting to be adjudicated.