By Helen Witty
National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving
State lawmakers are about to make it easier to drive drunk in West Virginia.
Since 2008, drivers arrested for DUI immediately lose their license for at least four months. The only way to drive during this period is with an ignition interlock, a small, in-car breathalyzer that requires a sober breath sample before the car will start. The license revocation period not only protects the public from drunk drivers with the potential to harm or kill. It also protects the driver from reoffending.
West Virginia is one of 41 states with an administrative license revocation (ALR) law – and one of only a handful that gives an arrested drunk driver the option to drive with an interlock instead of facing license suspension entirely.
This law has saved lives and money; anyone who installs an interlock after an arrest saves time, attorney fees and related expenses.
But Senate Bill 130, which passed the Senate Friday, would upend a law that has served as a model across the nation and saved hundreds of lives. It would put into reverse a dozen years of progress. It would mean fewer license suspensions and fewer interlocks.
It would mean more drunk drivers on West Virginia roads.
Between 2006 and 2018, ignition interlocks stopped more than 28,000 attempts to drive with a blood alcohol concentration of. 08 or greater just in West Virginia. These stops saved lives. Since 2008, drunk driving deaths in West Virginia have fallen by 60 percent, from more than 110 that year to 57 in 2018. That is extraordinary.
Drunk driving is a violent crime that continues to kill more people on our nation’s roads than any other cause. These sudden tragedies devastate families. I know. On a sunny afternoon in June 2000, my 16-year-old daughter, Helen Marie, went out rollerblading on a neighborhood bike path. I watched as she paused at the end of our driveway, flipped around, blew me a kiss and said, “I love you. I’ll be right back.”
I never saw her again. Helen Marie was headed home on the bike path when a speeding teenage driver, drunk on tequila and high on marijuana, lost of control of her car and struck her. My daughter looked up in time to see the car headed for her. But not in time to get out of the way. She died almost instantly.
For nearly two decades, I have done everything in my power to make sure no other family experiences what ours has. That includes advocating for strong drunk driving laws like the one that has been so effective in West Virginia – and opposing SB 130 that is detrimental to public safety.
Since 2008, drunk driving offenders who want to drive during the revocation period must use an interlock through the state’s Test and Lock Program, which is regulated by the DMV. First-time offenders with a BAC of .08 to .14 must use the interlock for four months; offenders with a BAC of .15 or greater must use the device for nine months. Drivers attend an administrative hearing – not a court hearing – which had a 94 percent success rate of completed revocations on more than 8,000 DUI arrests in 2016, according to the West Virginia DMV.
Relying only on the courts to hold drunk drivers accountable leaves too much to chance. During that same year, only about 40 percent of drunk drivers were found guilty of their original charge in criminal court. Nearly 1,850 people arrested for drunk driving were found guilty of a lesser charge or saw it dismissed entirely. We can’t afford those odds. Not when people’s lives are at stake.
Ignition interlocks allow offenders to carry on with their lives – to work, go to school, to care for their families – as long as they are sober. States must do everything they can to incentivize interlocks. That’s why I am asking everyone to contact their lawmakers today and urge them to oppose SB 130 and any legislation that would weaken the drunk driving law.
— Helen Witty is the National President of Mothers Against Drunk Driving