SAN DIEGO COUNTY -- Five people died on San Diego County roadways in the first three and a half days of the new year, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Three of the five fatalities occurred in North County:

- a 29-year-old San Marcos man died New Year's Day when his car went off El Camino Real in Rancho Santa Fe. The victim was hit by an Oceanside Marine who was subsequently arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence.

- and a Tijuana woman and her unborn child died early Sunday following a hit-and-run collision on Interstate 5 in Solana Beach.

The number of roadway deaths stands in contrast to the start of 2008, when just two people lost their lives in car crashes, Scheidnes said.

Those statistics don't include several other crashes that happened in the days around the New Year's holiday.

On Dec. 30, a 42-year-old Fallbrook woman died in a head-on crash on South Mission Road that injured five other people. A suspected drunken driver hit four cars on one residential street in Encinitas earlier that same day.

On Friday, several people reported seeing a possible drunken driver in Vista before a man in a severely damaged pickup crashed near the intersection of North Santa Fe Avenue and Taylor Street.

By 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon, CHP officers made 103 arrests for drunken driving in San Diego County, compared to 122 last year, Scheidnes said.

Statewide, CHP made 1,343 drunken driving arrests, as opposed to 1,596 last year.

The fatality rate was up statewide with 30, compared to 26 at the start of 2008.