The numbers are in, but the California Highway Patrol doesn’t quite know what to make of them.

The number of DUI arrests made by the Marin CHP of teens 18 or under doubled in 2012 compared to the year before, despite the CHP’s efforts to educate the public of the consequences.

In 2012, the CHP reported 20 DUI arrests of minors, double the 10 in 2011. In contrast to the number of DUI arrests for minors increasing, the number of DUI arrests of people between the ages of 19 and 20 dropped from 50 in 2011 to 40 in 2012. These are only the CHP’s numbers and don’t include DUI arrests made by the local police agencies.

“The numbers tend to spike during the summer time because high schoolers are out of school and they are kind of out more and they stay out later so we run into it more,” said CHP Officer Eric Hohmeister. “We spend a lot of our time responding to calls and collisions on the freeway, so in our proactive time we try to go problem areas and try to be present.”

In addition to their patrols, Hohmeister said that the CHP will get calls from high school administrations letting them know about big events, such as prom.

“We have extra staffing available on the Golden Gate Bridge when the people are supposed to be coming back from prom to make sure that underage drivers are actually carpooling and that they have a designated driver and that they are not drinking,” he said.

The CHP has two main parts to their strategy, according to Hohmeister.

“The main things we try to do are education and enforcement,” he said. “We have the Start Smart program here at the office once a month where we have a driving class for underage drivers who are just getting their license and we try to do as much education as we possibly can so that new drivers are aware of DUI laws and provisional license laws.”

The Start Smart Program aims to teach young people about the consequences of their actions.

“One of the things we talk about in the class is the DUI laws and how it’s going to affect your license if you get it, the criminal charges, your life as a young person and what it could mean for the future,” said CHP Sergeant Marcus Bartholomew.

As for the enforcement part, Bartholomew said the CHP does not go easy on anyone.

“We issue citations, we take people to jail, and I don’t think that a lot of kids understand that,” he said. “We don’t give people breaks, don’t ask for a break. It doesn’t matter who you know, who your parents are, it doesn’t matter if you are a straight A student or you are a scholar athlete, it does not matter.”

Bartholomew said that the CHP will continue to maintain an active presence in the community and will try to educate the public, especially people under 18, about the consequences of drinking and driving.

“If you are in violation, we are going to charge you, you are going to get charged and you are going to get in trouble,” he said.

He said that there is some confusion among teens as to what happens to them when they get a DUI.

“I think that age group might think that we pull people over and they’ve been drinking and we just drive them home, or we call their parents to come pick them up, and we don’t do that,” Bartholomew said. “We take them to jail. They either go to juvenile hall or we issue citations for it and have their parents come get them.”

Bartholomew said that there are different protocols for people under the legal drinking age than for adults.

“You can have one drink, you have one beer and within two hours you are out there driving around and we pull you over and we smell alcohol, you are required being under 21, to blow into our portable machine and if you register any amount of alcohol whatsoever on that machine, you get your license taken away for a year,” Bartholomew said.

Just because a driver has alcohol in their system, they don’t automatically receive a DUI. The driver must have impairment to get a DUI, but they can get a different criminal charge just for having alcohol in their system, Bartholomew said.

“If they blow into the machine and they are under 21 and they register half a beer’s worth of alcohol, we take their license on the spot and write them a citation for that particular charge,” he said. “We are not going to let them drive off with alcohol in their system, even if we don’t make that arrest.”

Bartholomew said that after the third charge, an underage DUI charge is considered a felony rather than a misdemeanor.

“It is a DUI charge, whether you are an adult or a juvenile, it is the same charge with the same penalties and consequences as an adult,” he said.