Linthicum found that 250 to 300 people under the legal limit are arrested annually for drunk driving in New Mexico and even people sleeping it off in their cars are going to jail for DWI.

Both MADD statewide Director LoraLee Ortiz and State DWI czar Rachel O’Connor admitted their awareness that this injustice is indeed happening.

It’s become such a problem that state Sen. Michael Sanchez, D-Belen, sponsored a bill to eliminate the alternative “impaired to the slightest degree” standard from the DWI statute. That is the statute that all 50 states have on the books that allows police to arrest people for DWI who were driving under the legal limit.

DWI czar O’Connor claims that the state is reviewing all of the elements of the state’s anti-DWI campaign to find out what has worked best and what has been most cost-effective. Arresting sober drivers for drunk driving probably won’t make the cut. And unless making MADD happy is among the criteria, we doubt that New Mexico’s law requiring ignition interlocks for all offenders will be on the short list. We recently explained why in a Journal guest column.
One solution to this growing problem that Linthicum offered is that legislators could “kick up the penalties only for multiple offenders.” As we’ve been saying for years, that is the best proposal for stopping hardcore drunk drivers.

The proposed laws face fierce opposition from the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association that supports requiring the devices for repeat offenders and those judged to be heavy drinkers but argues that a judge should be free to decide for first-time offenders just over the legal limit.

Although the ABI opposes mandating interlocks for first-time offenders, Longwell said research supports the need to require their long-term use for “hard-core” repeat offenders and those caught well over the legal limit of 0.08 blood alcohol level.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said last year that studies suggest interlocks “may be necessary as a long-term or permanent condition of driving for repeat offenders.”

Longwell, who plans to testify this week at legislative hearings in Maryland and Virginia, said initial support for first-time offender bills tends to wane after lawmakers hear the other side of the argument.

“We’re going another notch down the slippery slope,” she said. “They are going to push until there is one installed in every car and it’s set on 0.00. It’s a backdoor approach to Prohibition that will shift the entire way we socialize.”

Installing the next generation of interlocks in all cars has been discussed by advocates in interviews.

Read the full article here.

Give the piece a read here.

Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer published an ABI letter to the editor about MADD’s campaign to see interlocks in all cars:

Your editorial (“Locked for safety,” Jan. 16) didn’t mention that mandating ignition interlocks for all drunken-driving offenders is an incremental step in a project that seeks to put alcohol sensors in all cars.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is trying to subtly encourage Americans to be supportive of such in-car alcohol sensors. But once in all cars, interlocks would be set well below the legal limit.

You will no longer be able to have a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ball game, or a champagne toast at a wedding before driving home. That application of the technology isn’t anti-drunks, it’s anti-drinks.

Sarah Longwell

Today, the Chicago Tribune published ABI’s letter to the editor debunking one of MADD’s worst stats:

This is in response to “Women gain on men in drunken driving arrests” (News, Jan. 1). One of Mothers Against Drunk Driving‘s favorite talking points was quoted: “A first-time drunken driving offender on average has driven drunk 87 times before being arrested.” This goes so far as to accuse Americans of criminal acts with no proof to back up the claim.

Before advocating for new laws, we need an accurate, up-to-date measure of drunk driving behavior. It’s reckless to act based on one thing, when the reality is another.

– Sarah Longwell, managing director, American Beverage Institute, Washington

Learn the truth about other bad stats here.

USA TODAY’s editorial on Dec. 28 didn’t mention that mandating ignition interlocks for all drunken-driving offenders is an incremental step toward putting alcohol sensors in all cars.

Read more…

Can state track thousands of interlocks?

The American Beverage Institute opposes mandatory ignition interlocks for first-time drunk driving convictions. So Sarah Kapenstein of the institute coouldn’t [sic] wait to share an item from the group’s blog with me and my readers.

Essentially, what the institute is doing is trying to use the tragic case of Thomas Meighan, the man accused of killing Johns Hopkins student Miriam Frankl (rright [sic] ) in a hit-and-run, to advance its position [No, that is what MADD and the Baltimore Sun are doing.]. Meighan, a serial drunk driver, is charged with operating a motor vehicle in defiance of an order to use an interlock device.

At first, I thought this was a classic case of lobbyist logic [ABI is not a lobbying group. We are a restaurant trade association representing 220 Maryland restaurants.] — using one high-profile failure as an excuse to scrap an otherwise good idea. But on reflection, the institute raises a good question — even if it does so in a crass way. [Reread our original post. There is nothing crass about it. We call for Meighan to be punished as harshly as possible.]

Proponents of using the interlocks for first-time offenders need to make the case that requiring the the [sic] Motor Vehicle Administration to monitor large numbers of drivers ordered to use ignition interlocks devices wouldn’t degrade current efforts to keep tabs on the hard-core offenders. [The American Probation and Parole Association letter that we linked to in our post pleads against such an interlock mandate: “A workforce of probation officers is needed to ensure compliance with court-ordered ignition interlocks. Probation officers nationally already have excessive caseloads and unmanageable workloads… Furthermore, requiring ignition interlocks for all DWI offenders is an unnecessary and costly response.”]

My impression, however, is that there’s not much the MVA can do to assure compliance by folks who are determined to game the system. So there might not be any harm to existing compliance efforts from adding the new interlock customers. A high percentage of people will always comply because it’s the law and there are punishments for being caught breaking it [Wrong. 68% of offenders in New Mexico – the state that boasts the HIGHEST compliance rate with an interlock mandate – do not install the devices.].

If Meighan is found to have bypassed the ignition interlock requirement, the real lesson is that there are some cases in which the only effective measure is vehicle confiscation. In cases where a driver disables an interlock device, there should be automatic impoundment upon arrest and auction upon conviction. Does the poor offender need to drive to work to feed the babies? Tough. Take a bus. Walk. Put the babies up for adoption [Now that’s crass.]. He or she shoulda thought of that before defying a court order.

Chuck Hurley, the chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also noted that improvements were made in states such as New Mexico and Arizona which have adopted tough laws using breath-monitoring ignition interlock devices for offenders.

ABI called out MADD’s phony claims in yesterday’s Miami Herald:

It’s disingenuous for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to credit ignition interlock laws with the decrease in drunk driving fatalities in New Mexico and Arizona.

Fatalities went down in 43 states, not just the handful of states with interlock mandates on the books in 2008. In fact, the biggest decreases occurred in Wisconsin, Maine, and Vermont – none of which have the draconian interlock laws of the two southwest states. Vermont doesn’t even use the devices at all.

These numbers don’t tell us much about drunk driving behavior or the effectiveness of interlock laws. The decrease in fatalities can be attributed to a bad economy and high gas prices. Put simply, Americans drove less in 2008.

There’s no credible data to support MADD’s claim that interlock laws save lives. But it’s no surprise that they’d try to spin the numbers.

Chalk up another entry in MADD’s long, sad history of distorting stats and facts to push for greater regulation.

UPDATE: This letter was also published in today’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Minimum price controls should be imposed on alcohol and tougher drink-driving laws introduced, policy options circulated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest…

The draft recommendations – so far not widely distributed – have been released in the run up to a formal decision by member states next year.

… On drink-driving limits, the WHO suggests that the limit on drink driving should be 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, equivalent to a concentration level of 0.05%.

Higher drink prices and an even lower legal limit? That’s something even MADD hasn’t openly called for (yet). One reason they’re probably mum is because lowering it from .1% to .08% had little – if any – effect on our safety.

The fact is that the average drunk driver involved in a fatal crash drives at about .19 BAC– more than double the legal limit. Lowering the limit to .05 won’t keep us any safer on the roads, but it will make responsible drinkers sweat over having even a single drink before driving home. (Oh, and we know that raising drink prices will not prevent alcohol abuse.)

The WHO’s campaign is one of neoprohibition – seeking to use a “public health” facade as an excuse to put a stop to responsible alcohol consumption. Raising drink prices and lowering the legal limit will serve to deter consumption – to make you second guess that first glass of wine or beer with dinner.

Contrary to MADD’s zero tolerance stance on alcohol, the fact is that drinking and driving is perfectly safe and legal in all 50 states. There is nothing wrong or dangerous about having a glass of wine with dinner, a beer at a ballgame, or a champagne toast at a wedding prior to driving. Drunk driving is the true problem. That’s why we have a legal limit.

In the 1980’s and early 1990’s, MADD did great work to educate Americans about the dangers of drunk driving (their efforts resulted in a large decrease in fatalities). But in recent years, MADD has become, in the words of its own founder, “very neo-prohibitionist.”

KFOX’s story was about a tragic crash caused by a man whom police say was intoxicated. He was not simply “drinking,” as Gonzalez insinuated. He was drunk.

MADD wants you to believe that any drinking – even moderate and responsible drinking – prior to driving is immoral and dangerous. That’s not the case. In fact, the average drunk driver involved in a fatal crash was driving at more that double the legal limit. If MADD got back to basics and spent more time fighting drunk driving, instead of stigmatizing drinking, maybe this crash could have been prevented.