Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 28, 1993 TAG: 9309070163
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So, too, there was massive public tolerance of drunken drivers. Public sympathy tended to go out to those suffering the "bad luck" to be stopped by police for driving under the influence. The prevailing attitude: There, but for the grace of God, go I.
These attitudes did not begin to change significantly until the early '80s, when groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving started raising public awareness that drunken driving is a deadly serious issue.
As public sympathy shifted to drunken drivers' victims, legislative bodies, in Virginia and elsewhere, responded by enacting laws aimed at reducing the carnage.
Ten years, to this week, after the Governor's Task Force to Combat Drunken Driving was created, it is an appropriate time to ask: How goes the effort?
The answer is: quite well, but not well enough.
There have been important strides since then-Gov. Charles Robb set up the task force and named a little-known legislator - Mary Sue Terry from Patrick County - to head it. Forty-four of the task force's 51 recommendations have now been implemented.
One of the most controversial - raising the state's legal drinking age to 21- is estimated to have saved more than 150 lives and countless injuries since the law was enacted. In the early '80s, drinking drivers under age 20 accounted for about 14 percent of all alcohol-related highway crashes. That has now dropped to about 5 percent.
Overall, Virginia's death rate from drunken driving is down by 40 percent; arrests for drunken driving have doubled; and the driving-under-the-influence conviction rate has risen from the prior-1982 rate of less than 30 percent to 85 percent. All of this is worth celebrating.
Even so, there were 379 alcohol-related highway fatalities last year in the state, and more than 11,000 Virginians were injured in alcohol-related accidents. Drunken drivers, in other words, are still committing murder and mayhem.
What now seems clear is this: The new public climate of intolerance - coupled with tougher laws, stiffer penalties and campaigns such as the one promoting "designated drivers" - have pretty much discouraged so-called social drinkers from taking the wheel when they've had a few belts under their belts.
The big problem that remains is the hard-core drinker. Since 1988, for instance, the vast majority of drunken drivers involved in fatal highway crashes had an excessively high blood-alcohol content. Moreover, nearly a fourth of drinking drivers involved in fatal crashes have had prior DUI convictions.
These "problem drinkers" are more resistant to social pressures. Terry, now the Democratic candidate for governor, says they present "second generation" challenges for Virginia, and she is right.
Both Terry and her Republican opponent, George Allen, have promised , if elected, to crack down on drunken drivers. They are dueling now, as to who would be tougher, but this should be noted: As attorney general, Terry pushed for a so-called booze-it, lose-it administrative-revocation law that essentially would mean on-the-spot suspension of the driver's license of anyone stopped for driving under the influence.
Thirty states have such laws, and the swift and certain punishment has proved to be one of the most effective tools available to reduce slaughter on the roads.
The scandal in Virginia is that the General Assembly, for two years in a row, has passed such a bill, then allowed it to be caught up in infantile political machinations that blocked it from becoming law.
Terry says, as governor, she'd see to it that this legislation gets on the books. Allen doesn't support the legislation, but should.
Both, moreover, should pledge to take the booze-it, lose-it idea to its logical next step: Confiscate not just the licenses but the cars of drunken motorists who continue to drive after their licenses have been suspended for prior DUI convictions.
These are not unlucky drivers. They are unrepentant outlaws, armed and dangerous. They must be stopped.
by CNB