Barring any late fatalities from the holiday weekend, this past New Year’s counting period will go down as a case of good news and bad news for the highway patrol…the good news being there was one less fatality, seven statewide this year, compared to eight last year. The bad news…the total combined number of DWI and drug arrests was up this year, 178, compared to the 170 last year. The numbers, which do not include individual municipalities, also indicate that the highway patrol investigated 229 traffic crashes resulting in 77 injuries and five fatalities…the other two fatalities for the counting period were reported by the St. Louis and Sullivan police departments. Here in the Lake Area, there were no accidents reported by the highway patrol and only a handful of arrests including three for DWI alcohol and one for DWI drugs. On the water, statewide, it was all quiet with no accidents or drownings during the long holiday weekend.