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Tennesseans might begin to take the drunk-driving issue more seriously after a new mandatory penalty goes into effect Jan. 1.

The new law, passed by the General Assembly last spring, calls for the installation and use of functioning ignition interlock devices — dashboard Breathalyzers, so to speak — for certain drivers convicted of driving under the influence, including some first-timers.

A more cautious, consistent pattern of behavior among social drinkers could improve safety on Tennessee streets and highways.

A driver who takes the wheel under the influence of alcohol for the first time can kill someone just as readily as a habitual drunk driver.

But how many people do you know who don’t give much thought to having a few drinks before getting behind the wheel, until they get caught, booked and humiliated?
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New DUI Bill to Take Effect in 2010

The penalties for drinking and driving are about to get much stiffer.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill in to law that will allow judges to take away an offenders license for up to ten years in some cases.

Under the new bill, anyone convicted of three or more DUI’s in a ten year period, could have their licenses revoked for up to ten years.

Right now, those with three or more DUI’s get their licenses revoked for only three years.

Governor Schwarzenegger says the new legislation is an important step toward making California’s roads safer.

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ANDERSON — Despite tougher laws, drunken drivers still are responsible for accidents that claim hundreds of lives throughout South Carolina each year. That’s why police officers and deputies from six Upstate law enforcement agencies are honing their DUI-enforcement skills at a training program in Anderson this week.

“This training is set up to show how to detect DUI suspects on the road,” said Anderson police officer Eddie McCall, one of the organizers of the four-day course.

The most recent statistics show that 463 alcohol-related fatalities occurred on South Carolina roads in 2008. McCall said South Carolina is routinely one of the leading states for alcohol-related accidents. He also said Anderson County is typically among the worst counties in the state in terms of DUI carnage.

“We just like to drink around here,” McCall said.

A series of stricter DUI laws took effect last year in South Carolina, where motorists are considered to be legally intoxicated if their blood-alcohol level is .08 or higher.

The laws include more severe penalties for motorists with even higher blood-alcohol levels. For a first DUI offense, a driver will face a minimum $400 fine and a jail sentence of 48 hours to 30 days, or 48 hours of community service. But if the driver’s blood-alcohol level is between .10 and .16, the fine climbs to $500 with a jail sentence of 72 hours to 30 days, or 72 hours of community service. If a motorist’s blood-alcohol level is .16 or higher, the penalty for a first offense includes a $1,000 fine and a jail sentence of 30 to 90 days, or 30 days of community service.

Drivers found guilty of DUI for a fourth time will be sentenced to prison for anywhere from one to seven years, depending on their blood-alcohol level.

South Carolina also was one of the first states to require the videotaping of DUI arrests.

Proponents say these new laws and stepped-up enforcement efforts have led to more DUI arrests and fewer alcohol-related fatalities.

The Anderson Police Department has spent $170,000 from a federal grant during the past two years to create a two-officer DUI unit. Since the unit was formed, the officers have made 197 DUI arrests, a department spokesman, Tony Tilley, said Wednesday.

But to obtain a DUI conviction, law enforcement officers must carefully follow specific procedures, said Marty Perkins, one of the instructors who spoke at the training course Wednesday.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Perkins, a former police officer from Fishers, Ind., who now frequently testifies as a defense expert witness in DUI trials. “Follow the guidelines.”

A total of 16 officers and deputies from the Anderson Police Department, Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, Laurens Police Department, Oconee County Sheriff’s Office, Pickens County Sheriff’s Office and Simpsonville Police Department are attending this week’s course. In addition to hearing from experts, they have spent time practicing standard field sobriety tests on volunteers.

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The toughest drinking and driving sanctions in the country aim to put the brakes on a disturbing upswing in the number of impaired drivers on B.C. roads, the province’s solicitor general said Thursday.

The new sanctions, which were introduced in the spring, come into effect across the province on Monday.

“We need to change behaviour,” said Mike de Jong.

“(These sanctions) are tough by design. They are intended to reverse driving trends that are headed, for the moment, in the wrong direction.”

The number of impaired drivers on B.C. roads at night increased to 2.7 per cent in 2008, up from two per cent in 1995.

At night, roughly one in 32 drivers is impaired.

The new rules were created to honour four-year-old Alexa Middelaer, who was killed in 2008 by a drunk driver in Delta.

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Troubled starting cornerback for the West Virginia University football team, Brandon Hogan, was recently charged with DUI in Morgantown, West Virginia, and has been suspended indefinitely, the Charleston Daily Mail reports.

According to Mountaineers head coach Bill Stewart, Hogan broke a team rule and would be punished in a manner chosen by the coach over an appropriate period of time. “He will rejoin the Mountaineer team when I deem fit,” Stewart said at his weekly press conference.

Hogan, who was first-team all-Big East last season for West Virginia, was pulled over in the early morning hours recently after exiting a parking lot and turning down a one-way street headed in the wrong direction, according to the news provider. The 22-year-old then failed field sobriety tests and was taken into custody where he was processed without incident and released on bond, the news source said.

The DUI arrest comes after Hogan was cited for disorderly conduct and public urination in April. The cornerback was also held out of spring practice because Stewart wasn’t pleased with his effort in the offseason conditioning program. The coach was also reportedly upset with reports about Hogan’s poor performance in the classroom and attempted to remedy the situation by sending the player to study halls and tutoring sessions during spring practice.

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With more drivers impaired by illegal and prescription drugs, law enforcement officials say cracking down on drugged driving must become a national priority, says the Houston Chronicle. Drugged driving, though not new, has become more of a threat in recent years. Blood tests on drivers are detecting more traces of prescription drugs like Xanax, Soma, and hydrocodone — all substances that can adversely affect judgment, reaction time, and motor skills. The tests also are increasingly detecting mixtures of prescription and illegal drugs taken with alcohol, which can exacerbate impairment.

The troubling trend comes as DWIs nationwide have declined, largely because of more than two decades of public education about the dangers of drinking and driving. The Office of National Drug Control Policy is calling for a reduction in accidents and fatalities over the next five years and for more education and research on how drugs affect the ability to drive. “We’ve made progress on DWI,” said Gil Kerlikwoske, President Obama’s top drug policy adviser. “We need a very clear message on not using drugs and driving.” Getting  reliable statistics on the problem is. State DUI laws vary, and no standard has been established to determine when a driver is impaired by drugs, Kerlikwoske said. A blood alcohol content level of 0.08 is the standard used for alcohol impairment. The National Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers, conducted every 10 years, included drug use for the first time in 2007. The random survey of more than 9,000 drivers found that 16.3 percent of nighttime weekend drivers tested positive for over-the-counter and illegal drugs including marijuana and cocain

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An Illinois Motorist has taken a stand against DUI law enforcement in Lake County, Illinois for its perceived unfair arrest practice known as “No-Refusal Weekends.” An Illinois Driver who was arrested in 2008 during one of these promotional weekends, taken to the Lake County Jail where she remained in custody for over 12 hours and would not consent to a court-ordered blood test to determine her Blood Alcohol Content. In Illinois, as with the rest of the nation, the legal limit is. .08.

The women was later found not guilty of the DUI. Pursuing her rights, perhaps to the benefit of motorists everywhere, she has filed a lawsuit against Lake County, the Village of Libertyville and several law enforcement personnel for what is alleged to be an unlawful program of DUI enforcement. The women is asking for damages for those arrested under the “no refusal” program and also seeks to have the records of those arrested expunged.

Local-DUI-Attorney.org President Peter Buh commented on the program as well as the lawsuit. “No Refusal weekends occur with the cooperation of both prosecutors and judges who remain on call all weekend to obtain search warrants requesting that motorists be forced to give up evidence against them. If the motorist refuses, he or she can be found in contempt of court.”

Buh questioned the program while the lawsuit. “From the beginning of the Constitution in the United States, individuals have never been compelled to give incriminating evidence against oneself. The no-refusal weekends law forces a person to give evidence that will be later used to convict him or her of a serious crime. A law like that should be found unconstitutional.” Attorney Buh concluded. Local-DUI-Attorney.org is a lawyer referral organization which strives to connect those arrested for DUI with a local attorney who is proficient in the are of DUI law.

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HELENA – Lawmakers hoping to change Montana’s drinking and driving culture agreed Friday to send a series of tougher proposed laws to the full Legislature.

Montana has long ranked among the worst states in drunken driving statistics. Lawmakers and policy leaders are increasingly deciding the time has come to crack down.

Proposals approved Friday by the Law and Justice Interim Committee include efforts to reduce the number of minors who drink, stiffen some penalties for drunken driving and to make it easier for authorities prosecuting the crimes.

Supporters said the proposals will help. And they expect many more ideas to come before the Legislature, including one from the attorney general to closely monitor repeat offenders.

“It does a lot,” said Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor. “As always you are trying to make a bad situation better, it will never be perfect.”

One proposal creates stiffer penalties for “aggravated” drunken driving, such as having a blood alcohol content of .20 percent, far above the legal limit of .08 percent. Another gets rid of the law that does not allow courts to consider DUIs older than five years to be considered when seeking tougher punishment.

About a dozen separate proposed bills would also take away the driver’s license of minors ticketed for possessing alcohol, and provide more alcohol treatment.

Also included are plans to let police get a warrant 24 hours a day to get a blood test from those refusing a breath test. Currently drivers can refuse the test, and although they lose their driver’s license they deny key evidence.

A plan to mandate training for servers follows the high-profile death last year of a highway patrolman that has served as a catalyst for much of the focus on tougher DUI laws.

The driver who killed Montana Highway Patrol trooper Michael Haynes was served 13 drinks over 3 1/2 hours. The judge in that case sent a message by throwing out a plea deal against the bartender in favor of mandatory jail time.

Lawmakers hope better training will teach bartenders the dangers of serving way too much and prevent similar situations.

“I think it’s an important step forward in prevention,” said Mothers Against Drunk Drivers’ Rebecca Sturdevant. “This is really important.”

Others believe connecting minor-in-possession penalties to driver’s licenses will help reduce underage DUIs by preventing the drinking in the first place. Some high school students have been advocating the change.

“The young people’s position is to be tough,” said Rep. Ken Peterson, R-Billings. “Word spreads among the young people really well. If they know that, maybe they won’t drink. I think that message we send is real important.”

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Repeat impaired-driving offenders have subtle deficits in their decision-making abilities that may not be detected through conventional tests, says a new study.

Researchers assessed 34 male, second-time DUI (driving under the influence) offenders enrolled in a rehabilitation program and a control group of 31 healthy, non-offenders matched for age, education, and alcohol use.

All the participants underwent psychiatric assessments ad conventional neuropsychological testing, including the the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), to help assess personality patterns.

The IGT, Kasar explained, is used in many studies investigating alcohol problems because it simulates real-life decision-making.

“We found that second-time DUI offenders have a poorer performance on the IGT test than their matched counterparts,” Muzaffer Kasar, a resident in psychiatry at the Bakirkoy Research and Training Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, said in a journal news release.

In contrast, he and colleague David J. Nutt, a professor of psychiatry at Imperial College London in the U.K., found no differences between the repeat DUI offenders and the control group on conventional neuropsychological testing and temperament and character testing (TCI) scores.

“These findings suggest that second-time DUI offenders do not suffer from motor impulsiveness — that is, a lack of impulse control in ‘here and now’ situations,” Nutt said. Instead, he explained, “they suffer from cognitive impulsiveness, which depends on associating negative experiences with possible negative consequences.”

In other words, “there are brain reasons for why people make poor choices regarding DUI,” he added.

The researchers urged that such testing be expanded for people convicted of DUI, which they noted accounted for 40 percent of the fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States. In addition, they said, 33 percent of the DUI drivers were recidivists, or repeat offenders.

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The Sheriff’s Deputy who arrested Mel Gibson in the infamous 2006 DUI incident is suing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, claiming he has been subject to repeated disciplinary action and overlooked for promotions since complaining that the actor received preferential treatment from police, People reports. Sheriff’s Deputy James Mee is asking for an undisclosed sum in a lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles that alleges discrimination and harassment and states that he has been singled out in a four-year investigation into who leaked the confidential arrest report to TMZ.

The suit claims that Mee, who is Jewish, was asked by superiors to delete portions of his report, “effectively participating in covering up the anti-Semitic posture of Mr. Gibson.” Gibson allegedly spewed a string of anti-Semitic statements on the night in question. The lawsuit also alleges that Gibson is a close friend of Sheriff Lee Baca and other top officials.

“My client is being retaliated against because he is a Jewish deputy,” Mee’s lawyer Etan Z. Lorant told People. “He was the most logical person for the police to investigate, but they didn’t look into any other deputies. They started with him and ended with him, even though other deputies had access to the report. They should’ve kept investigating.”

The lawsuit states that no charges were ever filed against Mee and that the case has been filed as “unresolved.”

“We categorically deny this lawsuit,” Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore told People. “This has nothing to do with ethnicity. What the sheriff’s department did was launch an investigation because someone was releasing confidential documents, which is a crime. We look forward to telling the whole story in this case.”

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