DWI Blogs

DWI/DUI Arrests of Drivers with Low BACs
Drunken drivers involved in fatal traffic crashes have an average BAC of .19 percent, more than twice the current legal limit. 1 A large number of these drivers are repeat offenders, many of whom are alcoholic. Such hard core repeat offenders need treatment for their alcoholism, argues the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Dr. Jeffrey Runge. 2 As one traffic judge observes, we can’t simply jail the problem away. It’s much wiser to get to the heart of the problem.
Anyone breaking the law by driving with a BAC of .08 or higher should be ticketed and fined. However, as the founder and first president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) says, “if we really want to save lives, let’s go after the most dangerous drivers on the road.” 3 To be efficient we need to put our emphasis on apprehending and stopping the repeat, high BAC offenders who are at the highest risk of causing injuries or deaths.
Reports of drivers arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI) over and over again fill the news. One drunk driver was recently arrested for the 34th time. Our limited resources should focus on hunting down and treating habitual offenders. If treatment fails, they must be kept off the roads and highways.
However, as reported in The Washington Times, some police departments and officers seem to see things differently and are arresting drivers with a BAC just a fraction of the legal limit:
One Florida man recently ended up in jail for driving with a BAC of .02 percent -- the equivalent of about one drink. The grandson of a former Supreme Court justice, who had a little wine with dinner, was arrested in Washington with a BAC of .03 percent. And just a few months ago, a Florida man who admitted he drank a few beers hours before spent a night in jail though his BAC was a flat .00 percent. These are more than just isolated incidents. They are harbingers of a growing trend. 4
Observer John Doyle says “our collective failure to adequately deal with alcohol abusers who drive drunk should not be used as an excuse to punish moderate consumption of adult beverages.” 5

References:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) web site (nhtsa.dot.gov);
Lundegaard, Karen. DWI court treatment programs in U.S. show signs of helping drunk drivers to sober up. Wall street Journal, April 7, 2004, pp. B1-B2;
Fumento, Michael. Catch drunks, don’t harass drivers. consumeralert.org and fumento.com;
Doyle, John. Drunken driving checkpoints. Washington Times, p. A17, May 32, 2005;
Doyle, John. Drunken driving checkpoints. Washington Times, p. A17, May 32, 2005.

DWI Arrests at Zero BAC in DC
David J. Hanson, Ph.D.
“You Drink and Drive. You lose” is taken literally by police in the District of Columbia.
A 45 year old lawyer told a DC police officer that she had one glass of wine with her dinner; her breathalyzer test registered a low .03 blood alcohol concentration (BAC). For that, she was handcuffed, searched, arrested, put into a jail cell and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.
A mistake? An isolated incident? The vindictive action of a single rogue cop? It was none of these.
The arresting officer, Dennis Fair, said in an interview that “If you get behind the wheel of a car with any measurable amount of alcohol, you will be dealt with in DC. We have zero tolerance…. Anything above .01, we can arrest.” That’s not .10 but .01. And people are arrested in the nation’s capital with zero BACs. The DC’s Attorney General says that it’s legal for drivers to be arrested for DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) with “no registered BAC.” Indeed, DC police do arrest people with 0.00 BAC if they admit to having had a single drink with dinner.
Fair acknowledges that many people are unaware of the police zero tolerance policy. But he says “If you don’t know about it, then you’re a victim of your own ignorance.”
Apparently some members of the DC Council were unaware of the policy as well and have passed an ordinance to prevent it, although the mayor has threatened to veto the measure and Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) isn’t pleased with the Council’s action to prevent zero tolerance.
Letters to the Editor of The Washington Post expressed dismay at the zero tolerance policy. One reader asked “Why do we have laws if the police enforce whatever they want to, not the actual statutes? Shall we have ‘zero tolerance’ for speeding, so that a driver going under the speed limit can be stopped, ticketed and thrown in jail?” Another said “I find it absurd and insulting to District residents and visitors that in a city with chronic violent crime and growing gang violence, a police officer would spend so much of his shift on the arrest of a woman whose crime was having one glass of wine with dinner.”
The Washington Times asserts that
Washington is a city with a homicide every other day. It shouldn’t waste time hauling in hundreds of otherwise law-abiding citizens who happen to have a single drink with a meal. Given the D.C. government’s reputation for using fair means and foul to extract revenue from its citizens, this inevitably invites speculation that such zero-tolerance enforcement of drunk-driving laws has, like the spy cameras, little to do with citizen safety, and everything to do with squeezing taxpayers for a few dollars more.
The belief of the head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Glynn Birch, appears consistent with that of the District police. He says that if people want to have a drink, they should stay at home and not drive. However, an official with the American Automobile Association said “This zero tolerance is out of order, out of bounds and outrageous,” and he had been unaware of it. The policy can be especially harmful to those federal employees who need to maintain an arrest-free record in order to keep their jobs.

MADD’s View of Citizens’ Constitutional Rights
Mothers Against Drunk Driving is fueled by anger and grief. In fact, its original name was Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. 12 As a leading researcher on drunk driving has observed, MADD is focused on
the demand for justice or vengeance on the group that took the lives of friends and children. This warrants harsh punishment, whether or not deterrence is achieved. It also leads to rejection or a lack of enthusiasm for policies that promise to save lives of crash victims without regard for the cause of an accident. 13
A case in point. Research suggests that using a cell phone while driving may cause more traffic fatalities than driving drunk. But when a MADD official was asked how traffic fatality statistics involving cell phone use compared to those involving drunk drivers, he tellingly replied "I have absolutely no idea, nor do I care." 14 The reason appears to be that MADD sees other causes of traffic accidents to be potential competitors for money and attention. 15
The president of MADD Canada was outraged and publicly blasted a judge who sentenced a repeat drunk driver to restrictions, including electronically-monitored severe limits on his mobility on condition he remain in treatment for his alcoholism. The driver had maintained a long period of sobriety before experiencing a relapse. In handing down the sentence, the judge cited scientific research demonstrating that severe punishments are ineffective in deterring drunk driving by alcoholics. Therefore, she developed a sentence designed to reinforce the long-term effectiveness of his rehabilitation.
MADD Canada strongly disagreed with the judge and wanted severe punishment rather than rehabilitation. 16
MADD’s anger and grief often lead it to disregard constitutional rights. To learn more about MADD’s stance toward human or civil rights, visit MADD and Citizens’ Constitutional Rights.

MADD’s Focus on Money and Fund-Raising
Non-profit organizations typically permit their chapters to keep most of the money they raise. For example, Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID) chapters get to keep 90% of all funds they raise. But MADD claims ownership of every penny raised by all its many chapters. Thus, after raising $129,000 locally and turning it all over as MADD demands, the Las Vegas chapter received a check from the national office for $1.29 (one dollar and twenty nine cents) as its share. 10 MADD's "focus is on greed," said the chapter President, who reported "I've never seen such bloodsuckers!" 11
All items in some issues of Mothers Against Drunk Driving's MADD E-Newsletter are devoted entirely to MADD's primary mission of fund-raising. There are no pleas for sober driving, no calls for more sobriety checkpoints, no news reports, no petitions for legislation to reduce impaired driving and improve traffic safety ---- just fund-raising appeals. Most issues of the MADD E-Newsletter usually have at least one or two items not devoted to soliciting money.
MADD's national web site lists all local chapters. Each listing is followed by a plea to "Donate Locally." This is clearly deceptive because it implies that funds given to local chapters will be handled differently than funds given to the national office. In reality, all funds, wherever donated, must go directly and completely to the national office for use as it sees fit.
To learn more about MADD’s focus on money and fund-raising, visit MADD’s Money isn’t Mad Money.

MADD’s Use of “Science”
Unfortunately, Mothers Against Drunk Driving often uses junk science to promote its agenda. For example, a very brief three-page study by MADD former vice president Ralph Hingson made a statistical assertion in support of MADD’s policy agenda that the U.S. Department of Transportation had been unable to establish after 15 years of careful research. Even after the General U.S. Accounting Office issued a report to Congress insisting that the Hingson claim was "unfounded," MADD continues to quote the unsubstantiated estimate as scientific fact. 9
To learn more about MADD’s misuse science to promote its agenda, visit MADD, Junk Science, and the Misuse of Science.

MADD’s Goal: Is it Neo-Prohibitionist?
Mothers Against Drunk Driving stigmatizes light or moderate alcohol consumption, even when it isn't associated with either being underage or driving. For example:
MADD sells a graphic showing two empty glasses of alcohol surrounded by the words assault, drowning, burns, rape and suicide.
MADD sells a graphic that equates beer with heroin by depicting a beer bottle as a drug syringe.
MADD sells a television ad insisting that "if you think there's a difference" between heroin and alcohol, "you're dead wrong." 8
Mothers Against Drunk Driving has clearly become not simply anti-drunk driving or even anti-impaired driving, but anti-alcohol. MADD’s temperance orientation expresses itself in many ways, as seen in Is MADD Neo-Prohibitionist?

The Drunken Driving Problem
MADD recognizes that the problem of drunken driving has now largely been reduced to a "hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal." 1 Most drivers who have had something to drink have low blood alcohol concentration (BAC) and few are involved in fatal accidents or crashes. 2 On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BAC's higher than .15, many of those drivers have fatal crashes. 3 For example, almost half of fatally injured drunk drivers have a BAC of .16 (which is twice the legal limit) or higher. 4
The biggest problem in reducing drunk driving fatalities now consists of the hard core of alcoholic drivers who repeatedly drive with BAC's of .15 or higher. But MADD has now decided to go after social drinkers and to eliminate driving after drinking any amount of alcohol beverage. This change appears to reflect the influence of a growing neo-prohibitionist movement within MADD.
The founding president of MADD, Candy Lightner, left in disgust from the organization that she herself created because of its change in goals. "It has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I ever wanted or envisioned," she says. "I didn't start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving." 5 Ms. Lightner has emphasized the importance of distinguishing between alcohol and drinking on one hand and drunk driving on the other. 6
Ms. Lightner has apparently put her finger on the problem when she says that if MADD really wants to save lives, it will go after the real problem drivers. 7 Instead, it has become temperance-oriented.

DUI/DWI and Soft Judges
by David J. Hanson, Ph.D.
A “soft” judge is one who is considered more likely to aquit or find a defendant not guilty than many other judges.
A judge who upholds a defendant’s Constitutional rights is not “soft” for doing so. Indeed, all judges have given an oath to uphold the United States Constitution and to defend the rights it provides. Any judge who fails to protect these fundamental Constitutional rights is not soft but in serious violation of this oath and should be removed from the bench for dereliction of duty.
In the U.S. today “[U]ncompromising enforcement of laws designed to rid our highways of the scourge of drunk drivers ranks only slightly behind the veneration of motherhood and probably slightly ahead of a robust hankering for apple pie in the hierarchy of values firmly embedded in our culture.” 1
That’s exactly as it should be. In fact, we must do even more to reduce drunken driving and the serious problems it causes. But in doing so, we must carefully protect individuals’ Constitutional rights. Otherwise, we become a police state.
The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that “The requirements of the Fourth Amendment (of the United States Constitution) cannot be lowered” and it invalidated a county’s drunk-driving policy that provided for illegally obtaining evidence against citizens. 2
We must resist the strong temptation to obtain higher conviction rates at the expense of basic human rights. Otherwise, we become a police state.