Drunk Driving
“This tragedy affects each and everyone of us.”
We have made great strides in the drunk driving problem in this country since 1982. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a consensus among the public that we have solved the problem. We haven’t. In the last TEN years, an estimated 1,400,000 drivers have been arrested for DWI, annually. Yet this accounts for only about 1 in 300 drivers with illegal BACs on U.S. roads! A national representative telephone survey of more than 10,000 licensed drivers showed that U.S. drivers admitted to 85.5 million drinking-and-driving trips in the past 30 days in 2008.
Drunk driving is still a very dangerous threat to our safety every time we drive on our roadways. We are still killing approximately 10,000 people each year. Despite our progress, we need to do more, much more.
We must continue educating the public that drunk driving is unacceptable.
WSL Supports the following Impaired Driving Policies & Legislation
- Administrative License Revocation: Provides for the prompt administrative suspension or revocation of a DWI offender’s driver’s license for failing or refusing to submit to a Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) and/or drug test upon arrest.
- Criminalize refusal of the BAC or drug test by making the sanctions equivalent to or greater than a conviction for DWI. Prior convictions for DUI should “count” as prior convictions for refusing to provide a sample and vice versa.
- Felony Prosecutions. Any case involving a DUI driver with two or more prior convictions or who caused or contributed to a crash resulting in serious bodily injury or death should be charged and prosecuted as a felony.
- Graduated Penalties for Repeat Offenders: Increase the penalties for offenders who violate DWI laws more than once, such as vehicle or license plate impoundment for a second offense; confiscation of the automobile for a third or subsequent offense, and or permanent ignition interlock implementation.
- DWI Courts: Non-diversionary programs that apply comprehensive sentences and provide for a high level of monitoring of compliance, such as DWI/Drug Courts; typically include frequent judicial or probation contacts, use of electronic monitoring, mandatory alcohol assessment and treatment, random testing for both alcohol and other drugs.
- Comprehensive Drinking Age Laws: Drinking age law that prohibits the purchase, attempt to purchase or possession of alcohol, or the use of fraudulent identification, by an individual under the age of 21, as well as the sale of alcohol, or the provision of fraudulent identification, to any individual under age 21.
Click here for more Impaired Driving Policies & Legislative recommendations.
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