Getting arrested for drunken driving is supposed to be a wake-up call. A second time should be perceived as a punch in the gut and the occasion for profound change. But anyone with three or more DUIs has left behind questions of personal problems and made themselves an issue of public safety. They should be treated as such.
State Rep. Lori Saine, R-Firestone, is reintroducing a bill to make a person’s third drunken-driving charge a felony. It is a reasonable response to a clear and recognizable problem.
Drunken driving is unacceptable behavior, as we all know. But while it is certainly possible for an otherwise responsible person to make a mistake and have one too many at the New Year’s Eve party, that scenario is not the most pressing problem. Most of society has learned both how to avoid such situations and to pay attention to the issue.
What is increasingly clear is that the biggest problem is chronic, repeat offenders. These are people who, for one reason or another, just do not, will not or cannot control themselves, their drinking or the impulse to get behind the wheel.
As the Herald reported Tuesday, a 30-year-old Farmington man was arrested Dec. 31 on charges of drunken driving. He had two young children in the vehicle. It was the 16th time he has been arrested for DUI. Given his age, that works out to an average of more than once a year.
Local familiarity with Albuquerque news has shown us all the predictably tragic results of such behavior, but it is not just a New Mexico problem. The Denver Post reported last month that a Colorado man had been convicted “at least 16 times on alcohol-related driving offenses.”
Disregarding for the moment what that man might be thinking, how is it possible that the rest of us put up with that?
Colorado is one of the few states with no felony DUI law. Every conviction for drunken driving is a misdemeanor. Or, as Rep. Saine said, “Right now, your third DUI is the same as your 10th, the same as your 16th, the same as your 20th and so on.”
If her bill passes, anyone charged with a third DUI within seven years or a fourth in any period could face Class 4 felony charges and a sentence of up to six years in prison as well as a potentially hefty fine. The bill would also lengthen the time convicted drunken drivers would be required to use an interlock device in their vehicles for one year to as long as five years.
Those are necessary, and probably effective, steps. Part of the problem is that prison may be the only way to limit the risk multiple offenders pose. For an otherwise upstanding citizen, a single DUI could cost $10,000, perhaps a job or a marriage and possibly end a career. Those are strong incentives to behave. Someone with multiple drunken driving arrests, however, most likely does not have all that much to lose and demonstrably does not care. They may not care about prison, either, but at least there they are less likely to hurt innocent people.
A similar bill with bipartisan support was killed last year by Democrats in the state Senate, ostensibly over concerns about costs to the state. Misdemeanors offenders land in county jails; those convicted of felonies go to state prisons, and for longer.
That is a false economy. The potential cost in lives and dollars of ignoring the repeated behavior of someone with multiple DUI convictions is simply too great. The Legislature should pass Saine’s bill.
