Fourteen people died in road crashes during the long weekend for the Encounter of Two Worlds holiday, which ended on Monday, October 12. All the deaths occurred outside the Metropolitan Region, according to the report police released on Tuesday.
The information, published by BioBioChile, was provided by Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Cortés of the Traffic and Highways Prefecture. Police recorded 369 road crashes, 275 injuries and 202 arrests. Alcohol and drug use and reckless driving accounted for most of the incidents.
"We have had fatalities in the regions of Maule, La Araucanía, Valparaíso and Atacama," Cortés said. According to CNN Chile, the victims included 12 men and two women. Nine were drivers, four were passengers and one was a pedestrian.
With these deaths, traffic fatalities have exceeded 1,100 so far in 2026.
Over the three days, police checked 66,594 vehicles, according to BioBioChile and El Mostrador. CNN Chile reported a slightly different figure of 66,504. Officers also administered 17,512 tests, of which 17,359 were breath alcohol tests and 153 were drug tests.
Of the 202 people arrested, 118 were driving while intoxicated, 46 were driving under the influence of alcohol and 38 under the influence of drugs. Another 12 people were arrested for reckless driving.
The checks resulted in 2,649 traffic citations nationwide. Of these, 1,838 were for speeding, 667 for not wearing a seat belt and 144 for failing to comply with rules on child restraint systems (SRI), the seats required for transporting children.
More than 390 thousand vehicles left the Metropolitan Region during the holiday. Route 5 South accounted for 30% of those departures. It was followed by Route 78, toward the coast, and Route 68.
Police highlighted their joint work with highway concession operators and the National Service for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Drug and Alcohol Use (Senda), which supported alcohol and drug checks on the country's main roads.
