GUEST EDITORIAL: Put brakes on DUI death toll

 Billings Gazette

The encouraging news from the Montana Highway Patrol is that 2009, so far, has brought the fewest traffic fatalities in Montana in four years. However, the data also shows a larger number of these fewer crashes are related to alcohol use.

According to the MHP's weekly report, as of Monday morning, 177 people had died in traffic crashes since Jan. 1, compared with 182 deaths at the same point in 2008. Last year, alcohol was reported to be a factor in 66 deaths by the first week of October; this year alcohol has been a factor in 73 deaths. Alcohol played a role in 73 of 177 deaths so far this year.

Those are numbers that the Montana Legislature's Interim Law and Justice Committee should take to heart. The committee devoted a full day of its two-day meeting in Helena last week to various aspects of drunken driving prevention, enforcement, treatment and penalties.

The committee wisely selected DUI as one of its major interim studies among many issues that could have received its attention. Senate Joint Resolution 39, introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including state Sen. Kim Gillan of Billings, requested the study of driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. SJR39 stated its reasons clearly:

Senate Joint Resolution 39, introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including state Sen. Kim Gillan of Billings, requested the study of driving under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. SJR39 stated its reasons clearly:

' Montana law 'has become a complex patchwork of statutes arising from federal mandates, initiatives by legislators or task forces and case-specific circumstances.'

' Among 324 drivers involved in fatal crashes, 123 were DUI, according to 2007 MHP statistics. Among 9,541 drivers involved in injury crashes that year, 1,161 were DUI.

' DUI conviction-to-arrest rates vary from a high of one conviction to 1.5 arrests to as low as one conviction for each six arrests.

The committee hasn't made any decisions or recommendations yet but talked about a wide range of possible policy changes, according to Rep. Ken Peterson of Billings, a member who is an attorney and former city attorney for Billings. Among ideas discussed last week were strategies for making the penalty for refusing a breath test as severe as the penalty for DUI, strengthening the presumption that 0.08 percent blood alcohol content is evidence of impairment, making ignition interlock devices mandatory on vehicles owned by repeat offenders, keeping repeat DUI offenders from driving cars they borrow and preventing driving under the influence of drugs other than alcohol. The committee also asked its staff to research how other states are dealing with DUI and to get information about how drunken driving prevention information is presented in Montana driver education courses.

The 2009 Legislature rejected every proposal for strengthening DUI enforcement, ensuring that repeat offenders get addiction treatment and closing loopholes that allow some of the worst offenders to keep driving drunk. The Interim Law and Justice Committee has the potential to show the 2011 session a better route for protecting public safety on our highways.

As Peterson said: 'It's such a problem we have to do something with it, and just locking them up isn't working.'

This editorial appeared in the Gazette and at billingsgazette.net on Wednesday.