Daily Herald
Utah DUI laws targeting drunken drivers are making a difference.
According to the Utah Substance Abuse and Anti-Violence Coordinating Council, 37 people were killed in drunken driving accidents in 2005, down from 72 the year before. That means Utah now has the lowest death rate for drunken driving in the nation.
However, this success is little consolation for the families of those who lost a loved one to a drunken driver. Their lives are still devastated by one person's thoughtless, illegal action.
The state needs to do more. There are several proposals on the table that, if implemented, should further strengthen Utah's laws.
The Statewide Association of Prosecutors is proposing several changes, which Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, will sponsor in January's session. These changes make it even easier to crack down on repeat offenders and clarify parts of the current law that are confusing.
For example, a third drunken-driving conviction within 10 years is supposed to be treated as a felony offense. Unfortunately, the time it takes to get a case through the court system occasionally pushes that third conviction outside the 10-year window, and keeps the offender from being punished as a felon.
The solution, as proposed by the prosecutors, is to declare a felony on the third DUI charge instead of waiting for the conviction. This will make it easier to hand down a harsher punishment to a repeat offender and send a warning to other drunken drivers that drinking and driving could mean more than just a traffic ticket.
The prosecutors are also seeking to give judges the ability to require ignition interlocks as a condition of probation for alcohol-restricted drivers who are caught with any alcohol in their system or explain why they chose other measures to punish these offenders. Blowing into a machine just to start up the car may be enough to keep some of these offenders on the straight and narrow. If that's not enough, in a judge's view, he should be able to explain in writing why a different approach is warranted.
The prosecutors also seek to revoke a drunken driver's license for driving a car without an interlock device when the driver was required to have one by the courts. Paul Boyden, executive director of the prosecutors' association, said the omission of that provision was an oversight when the original law on alcohol-restricted drivers was written.
But that is only part of the solution. Tough penalties and fines only target those who get caught. While the thought of punishment may deter some drunken drivers, there are still others who think it won't happen to them or don't see themselves as drunks. The only real way to make serious headway on eliminating drunken driving is through public education.
Toward that end, the state substance abuse council is recommending another $1.6 million to continue the state's campaign against underage drinking. While just 11 percent of the drunken drivers arrested in Utah were younger than 21, keeping kids away from alcohol now will help prevent them from becoming alcoholic adults who get behind the wheel after a few drinks.
Any education program should also include victims of DUI accidents or their surviving family sharing how a drunken driver devastated their lives, as well as drunken drivers testifying how an evening's revelry cost them dearly, both financially and emotionally. Such personal statements may be more powerful than all the lectures teachers, D.A.R.E officers and others can give kids, and will be a more realistic presentation than the mock accidents many schools use to drive home the anti-DUI message.
Reaching out to kids not only heads off future problems, but they will take the messages home and may get their parents to think twice about their own habits.
Utah has accomplished much in combating drunken driving, and state officials deserve our gratitude. But for the sake of those who died last year, let's not rest on our laurels. The fight is not over yet.
