Expect to see beefed up police on highways across the state as the 2011 winter holiday impaired driving crackdown gets underway.

It comes as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) releases new data which shows drunk driving deaths are down in many parts of the country.

New state-by-state data for 2010 shows a decline in drunk driving fatalities in 32 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Compared with 2009, California and Florida saw the largest reductions-with each declining by more than 100 fatalities last year.

Despite these drops, officials with the Department of Transportation (DOT) say drunk driving remains a major public health threat that claims thousands of lives every year. According to NHTSA, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes last year. That includes 415 deaths during the first half of last December alone.

The crackdown is supported by the national Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign. The DOT is reminding drivers to never get behind the wheel if they've had too much to drink.

For more information, and to access state-by-state data on the 2010 fatality rates, click here.