“Car breath tests for 1st-time DUI offenders?”

May 14, 2009

The title of this post is the headline of this article from my local Columbus Dispatch. As a few excerpt show, this short piece appeals to my affinity for technocorrections, for data-driven sentencing reforms, for alternatives to incarceration and for getting tougher on drunk driving:

Some Ohio lawmakers and Mothers Against Drunk Driving want the state to require anyone convicted of a drunken-driving offense to blow into an alcohol tester before his or her car can start — the first step, opponents say, in requiring all drivers to submit to such a test.

MADD’s national president, Laura Dean-Mooney, testified at the Ohio Statehouse yesterday in favor of a bill that would require ignition-interlock devices for first-time DUI offenders.

She said the 10 states that have such laws have had significant decreases in the number of drunken-driving accidents and deaths. DUI-related accidents have decreased 35 percent in New Mexico since that state required ignition interlocks in 2005, she said.

“Despite the fact that this life-saving technology exists, it’s not used very often,” Dean-Mooney told the Ohio House’s Criminal Justice Committee. “Ignition interlocks would reduce recidivism and save some of the 13,000 lives that are lost in drunk-driving accidents every year.”

Last year, 466 people died in Ohio in DUI-related accidents, according to the State Highway Patrol. About 9,000 others were injured…. Ohio law prescribes an ignition interlock for second-time offenders for whom judges restrict driving privileges.

In my view, unless and until there is empirical evidence indicating that ignition interlocks are ineffective, the answer to the question in the title of this post should be an emphatic YES. Even If Ohio might only get half the accident decrease in New Mexico, the data still suggests we could save perhaps as many as 100 lives and thousands of injuries from simply requiring those convicted of drunk driving to prove they are not repeating their offense when they again get behind the wheel. Unless one cares a lot more about some value other than innocent lives, I do not quite understand the basis for serious opposition to this proposal.

Of course, there was opposition expressed at the Ohio Statehouse yesterday, but those voicing the opposition is tellingly a group, the American Beverage Institute, that sees a loss of potential profits from this potentially life-saving bill:

A total of 27 states require repeat DUI offenders or first-timers with extremely high blood-alcohol concentrations to blow into the testers before their engines can start, said Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute.

The trade group of alcohol-serving restaurants opposes efforts to require ignition interlocks for first-time offenders. “This bill mandates that people one sip away from 0.0799 receive a punishment normally reserved for high-(blood-alcohol-content), repeat offenders,” Longwell told the House committee. “While both have committed a crime, they are very different types of criminals.”

Some related posts on sentencing drunk drivers: