
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, July 27, 1993                   TAG: 9307270200
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

ALLEN, TERRY VYING FOR `TOUGHEST' TITLE

As Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Sue Terry proposed a crackdown on drunken drivers during a meeting Monday of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, operatives for her Republican opponent, George Allen, were busy trying to make him look even tougher.

Copies of Allen's platform, calling for Virginia's legal blood-alcohol limit to be lowered from the current 0.10 percent to 0.07 percent, were being distributed to reporters during Terry's remarks.

Their political game of one-upmanship continued later in the day via fax machine.

Terry, who headed a gubernatorial task force on drunken driving a decade ago when Charles Robb was governor, was receiving an award from the state MADD group for her longtime efforts. The group credited the task force for changing attitudes and strengthening state laws against drunken driving.

Telling the group it isn't time to "unsaddle" her leadership, Terry outlined several initiatives to combat drinking and driving, including:

Immediate forfeiture of a driver's license for anyone stopped and suspected of driving drunk.

Lowering the legal blood-alcohol limit for anyone under age 21 to 0.02 percent.

Increasing the minimum penalty to five years in prison for anyone with a suspended or revoked license or with a history of drunken-driving convictions who kills someone in another drunken-driving accident.

Allen noted later that a 180-pound man could drink four beers and still not hit the 0.07 limit, which is the toughest blood-alcohol limit in the nation.

He called for a mandatory minimum sentence of two days in jail or two weeks of community service for a first drunken-driving offense; for juvenile offenders to spend at least two weeks in a military-style boot camp; and for a greater number of sobriety checkpoints during holidays.

As the candidates battled later in the day to prove their toughness and the other's weakness, Allen's spokesman called Terry's record empty, suggesting that a drunken driver under her proposed five-year minimum prison sentence would be paroled in 12 months.

Alternately, Terry's spokesman charged that Allen was "shamelessly and belatedly jumping on the bandwagon" against drunk driving, and suggested that he "needs a rendezvous with his record" on the issue.

Lillian N. DeVenny, state president of Virginians Opposing Drunk Driving, said it is "unrealistic" to expect the Virginia General Assembly to lower the legal intoxication limit to 0.07 percent. She questioned whether Allen is simply trying to "sound tough" during the campaign.

But Cheryl M. Burrell, chairman of Virginia MADD, said she didn't much care whether Terry or Allen wins the election.

"Both are talking about the issue and are willing to address it," Burrell said. "That's all that matters to us."

Keywords:
POLITICS

by CNB