23rd
Ohio gets tough on drunken drivers
© Michelle Bollman
Published Summer 2008, Cincinnati Enqurier
COLUMBUS — State legislators Tuesday passed a sweeping bill to crack down on drunken driving, including a requirement to install key-lock devices for repeat offenders.
With Gov. Ted Strickland’s expected signature, the new law would make Ohio the seventh state with so-called “interlock” devices. The $90-a-month ignition lock requires the diver to blow into a device to detect alcohol. If the interlock system detects alcohol on the driver’s breath, it will prevent the car from starting. Drivers face additional charges for trying to bypass the device or using another person’s vehicle.
The multifaceted bill — aimed at reducing the number of repeat drunken drivers:
Requires creation in six months of a public online database, called the “habitual OVI offender registry,” for people with five or more drunken-driving offenses.
Increases license-reinstatement fees by $50, to $475 from $425.
Fines are boosted by $50, to $375 from $325 for a first offense; to $525 from $475 for a second offense within six years; and to $850 from $800 for a third offense in six years. More offenses that that, and fines will go to $1,350 from $1,300.
Expands the number of alcohol treatment centers.
The bill would require those convicted of drunken driving to have their vehicles immobilized for up to a year if they’ve been convicted of a similar offense in the previous six years. The driver’s license plate would also be impounded.
Currently, the length for those punishments is 90 days, although judges have a great deal of discretion.
Of 250,000 Ohioans with at least one driving-under-the-influence arrest, 44 percent have multiple convictions, state Rep. John White, R-Kettering, told his colleagues on the House floor Tuesday.
House members approved the drunken-driving bill 87 to 6. The Senate had passed the bill earlier, then Tuesday concurred with House changes.
Senate Bill 17, sponsored by Sen. Timothy Grendell, R-Chestland, also requires a blood-alcohol test for anyone with two or more convictions and allows police to use reasonable force to administer the test. What kind of force was not defined and might be tested in court.
Many agencies and groups including the Ohio Department of Public Safety and Mothers Against Drunk Driving helped write the bill, White said.
“We have a bill that feels good and sounds good, and it does take a step,” Doug Scoles, executive director of Ohio MADD, said after passage of the bill.
An amendment of state Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, would require all repeat offenders to have a key-locking device installed in their cars.
Scoles said a 2005 New Mexico law, after which Ohio modeled its key-lock plan, has reduced repeat drunken-driving offenses by 60 percent and lowered alcohol-related traffic fatalities by 23 percent.
Originally, Seitz wanted the key-lock device to be required for even first time offenders, but the Ohio House relaxed that requirement to two or more convictions.
“This is the surest way to prevent people from drinking and driving,” Seitz said.
And second amendment by former state Sen. Patricia Clancy, R-Colerain Township, requires the Ohio Department of Public Safety to create a database to track any driver with five or more drunken driving offenses during the past 20 years.
Last year, The Enquirer lost a lawsuit seeking access to a database containing cumulative conviction records of drunken-driving offenders after the state argues that their personal information was protected by the state and federal privacy laws.
An Enquirer analysis last spring found that more than 3,500 licensed drivers had been convicted of drunken driving in Southwest Ohio five or more times. Based on Department of Public Safety figures dating to 1973, almost 36,000 drivers had five or more DUI convictions in Ohio.
