POLICE AUTHORITIES LAUD NEW DRUNK DRIVING LAW

Law enforcement officials are applauding a new drunk-driving law that they say could help them in efforts to get intoxicated drivers off the roads.

The law, enacted last year by the state legislature, went into effect Wednesday.

The law contains a number of provisions, including one that makes it illegal to drink alcohol while driving a motor vehicle on public roadways. A violation is punishable by a maximum fine of $200.

Prior to Wednesday, it was not illegal to drink and drive. "A person, as long as he was not intoxicated, could drive down the street and drink a beer," said Capt. Steve Strong, commander of field operations for the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

Strong said, "This law is only common sense; that you should not be consuming an alcoholic beverage and driving down the street."

Strong said the provision only applies to the driver and not to passengers in a vehicle.

The law also:

Reduces from .13 percent to .10 percent the blood-alcohol level required for a police officer to immediately take an offender's license as part of the administrative revocation or suspension process.

Allows administrative revocations and suspensions of licenses even when arrests occur at DWI roadblocks and checkpoints. Previously, persons arrested on drunk-driving charges at such checkpoints were not subject to administrative revocations or suspensions.

Allows alcohol-related traffic convictions from municipal courts to be considered by state courts in determining whether a motorist is a repeat offender.

Allows the courts to order a person found guilty of driving while intoxicated to reimburse state or local law enforcement agencies for costs associated with the arrest.

Disallows the regaining of a driver's license under a hardship provision until after the license has been suspended or revoked for 30 days.

One benefit of the law is that Missouri will receive an additional $1.2 million in federal highway funds.

Strong said Missouri's new law is not as tough as those of some other states such as Illinois, where it is illegal to have an open container of alcohol in a vehicle.

"In some states," he said, "you can't have it in the car, period, unless it is in the trunk."

Still, Strong said he's glad to see Missouri impose new restrictions to deal with drunk driving.

"The mixture of alcohol and driving in this country has created a lot of problems, caused a lot of accidents, and injured and killed a lot of people, and continues to do so," he said.

Sgt. Terry Moore of the Missouri Highway Patrol in Jefferson City said, "There are several provisions in this law that we hope will enhance the safety of the motoring public.

"Hopefully, it will get more of the repeat offenders off the roads," he said. "Those are the individuals that studies have proven are more likely to be involved in DWI- or alcohol-related accidents."

Last year in Missouri law enforcement agencies arrested 39,653 people on suspicion of driving while intoxicated; 272 people were killed and more than 7,800 injured in alcohol-related accidents, Moore said.

The highway patrol made about one-fourth of the drunk-driving arrests statewide, arresting 9,174 people last year, he pointed out.

Last year the patrol's Troop E handled 469 alcohol-related accidents in Southeast Missouri. Of the 83 people killed in all accidents reported to Troop E, 22 were intoxicated drivers, said a spokesman with Troop E in Poplar Bluff.

Strong applauded the reimbursement provision of the new law. He said the Cape Girardeau Police Department will be calculating the average cost involved in a drunk-driving arrest.

He said the department plans to ask both Presiding Circuit Judge A.J. Seier and Municipal Judge Edward Calvin to order such reimbursements.

"I see nothing wrong with the police department being reimbursed," said Strong.

Moore said: "I have heard some people refer to that as a user fee. The thing about it is, why should the law-abiding citizen pay for the enforcement of those people who are intoxicated and causing alcohol-related accidents?"

Moore said the highway patrol and the Missouri Division of Highway Safety have held seminars across the state to explain the new law and the reimbursement provisions to judges, prosecutors and law enforcement agencies.

To Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle, the most significant part of the new law is the fact that those arrested on drunk-driving offenses can be charged as repeat offenders in state court on the basis of previous alcohol-related traffic convictions in municipal courts.

"That is something to me that has been a loophole that needed to be closed for a long time," he said.

Swingle said that in the past he has had to charge individuals as first offenders when they have had as many as eight previous DWI convictions in city courts across the state.

First- and second-offense DWIs are misdemeanor crimes in state court, while a third-offense is a felony.

The new law allows municipal court convictions to be considered on two conditions: that the municipal court judges have law degrees and those convicted were represented by attorneys or waived their right to an attorney.

"In the past, the legislature had tried to make city court convictions count, and it was held to be unconstitutional because a lot of city courts are kangaroo courts where they don't follow the rules of evidence," said Swingle, explaining the reason for the two conditions.

Strong said reducing the blood-alcohol level needed for an administrative revocation or suspension to .10 percent makes sense because that is the legal level required for intoxication.

Previously, a motorist could be legally drunk, yet not automatically lose his license because he had a blood-alcohol content of less than .13 percent.

"It is saying, `If you drive while you are intoxicated, you are going to lose your license.' Under the old law it said, `If you are driving while intoxicated, sometimes you are going to lose your license,'" said Strong.