Our blog has reached its one year anniversary. We have posted quite a few interesting news items about DUI and related issues.
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Washington, DC. April 8 — President Barack Obama has chosen a top official with Mothers Against Drunk Driving to lead a Transportation agency that oversees safety and fuel efficiency requirements for automakers.
Chuck Hurley was nominated Wednesday to become administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Hurley, a longtime safety advocate, has served as MADD’s chief executive officer since 2005 and worked for the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
At MADD, Hurley urged states to adopt tougher drunken driving laws and require first-time offenders to use ignition interlock devices on their cars. The devices require drivers to blow into an instrument that measures alcohol and prevent a vehicle from starting if the driver’s blood alcohol concentration exceeds a certain level…
The organization has received funding from several auto companies, including General Motors Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Ford Motor Co. and others. The General Motors Foundation provided MADD and MADD-related programs with $133,000 in grants in 2007, according to financial records filed with the IRS.
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Greenwood, MS. Jan. 25 – Mothers Against Drunk Driving has done much over the years to reduce the incidence of drunk driving and the terrible consequences that can come from it…
The group, though, has hit somewhat of a plateau. For at least a decade, the numbers have hardly budged. Somewhere around 13,000 people — give or take a few hundred — die every year in an alcohol-related crash in the United States.
When a well-intended advocacy group hits a wall, the danger is that it will go overboard with heavy-handed proposals. That is the case with MADD’s latest push to get judges to order all convicted DUI offenders, even first-timers, to outfit their cars with ignition interlock devices.
The devices aren’t foolproof, however. Despite the efforts of engineers to outwit the ways that a drunk driver might try to circumvent one, MADD’s own statistics put the devices’ effectiveness at 64 percent…
Yet, that seems to be MAAD’s big push this year. Only eight states mandate or allow judges to order ignition interlock devices for a first offender. MADD wants it be an option in every state. The advocacy group has gotten bills to that effect filed in legislatures all across the country, including Mississippi.
As dangerous as drunk driving can be, this remedy still rings of being overblown. It adds another layer of punishment to a crime that the courts are required to take seriously, thanks to mandatory minimum sentences that have been instituted over the years.
Mississippi, like most of the country, already has stern DUI laws on the books that are designed to dissuade those who get caught one time from repeating their mistake…
If, after serving that penalty, a driver gets a second DUI, he either is incapable of learning from his mistakes or he has a drinking problem. Either way, employing an ignition interlock device then becomes a reasonable response to protect the public from what appears to be a persistent threat to its safety.
MADD, though, sounds as if it wants to treat all DUI offenders as if they are repeat abusers. In fact, that’s part of its argument for the interlock ignition proposal. Citing a 13-year-old research study, it claims that on average a person will drive drunk 87 times before he is caught and convicted the first time.
MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), though I don’t know anyone who is in favor of drunk driving has proposed mandatory placement of ignition interlock devices on new vehicles in the U.S.
Toyota, GM and Saab already have these devices near completion for installation at the factories:
Tokyo- Japanese auto giant Toyota Motor Corp. will develop a system to stop a vehicle if it detects the driver is drunk as part of efforts to cope with a serious social problem, a report said on Wednesday.
The system, expected to become available in 2009, analyzes sweat on the palms of the driver’s hands to assess blood alcohol content and would then not allow the vehicle to be started if the reading was above safety limits, the Asahi Shimbun said. The system would also analyze the driver’s eye movement, driving performance and other factors, the Asahi said.
European automakers have developed systems that require the driver to blow into a tube attached to a vehicle to detect alcohol in the breath. Toyota opted not to use that system as it may fail if the driver asks another person to blow into the tube, the Asahi said.
Toyota rival Nissan Motor said last year it was planning similar steps.
From CBS News:
You have a few drinks, climb behind the wheel of your car, turn the key and — nothing. The engine doesn’t turn over, the car doesn’t move.
If Mothers Against Drunk Driving has its way, a device that checks a driver’s alcohol levels will be mandatory in cars owned by anyone ever convicted of drunk driving, and, eventually, every automobile.
New Mexico already has such a law.
MADD, backed by a national association of state highway officials and car manufacturers, is announcing a campaign to change drunken driving laws in the other 49 states to require such devices for first-time offenders.
“We’ll focus on that problem of separating the drunk driver from the vehicle,” MADD president Glynn Birch told CBS Radio News.
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