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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett signed into law Monday a bill that strengthens penalties against people convicted of driving a watercraft while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, sponsored the bill after the death of Valerie Heidt, who was killed in a boating accident in the Susquehanna River in July 2009. Police said John E. Englert II, of Mill Hall, drove his boat into its path and the two collided. Valerie Heidt was killed, and seven people were injured.

Police said Englert had a 0.22 blood alcohol level at the time, almost three times the legal limit for driving a car. State law prohibited the judge from considering his four previous DUIs.

Andi Heidt Biddle, Valerie’s mother, appealed to state lawmakers after the agreement because killing someone by boat while DUI currently results in a lesser prison sentence than someone who does the same by car.
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A proposed Pennsylvania state law could soon mean harsher penalties for people convicted of boating while intoxicated. The governor is expected to sign the proposal soon.

Boaters on Lake Wallenpaupack in Wayne County said it is something they worry about.

“Oh, yeah, it’s crazy on the weekends, you have the crazy people who are out there. Half of them don’t know how to drive a boat the other half are drunk, so it’s always scary,” said Donald Foulk of Sterling Marina.
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There’s nothing good that can be said about a car crash that ends in the death of two people.

Family and friends of Ryan Dunn and Zachary H. certainly will attest to that.

Zachary was a passenger in the Porsche Dunn was driving early last Monday morning when the vehicle hit a guardrail in West Goshen, Chester County, landed in the woods and burst into flames.

The 34-year-old West Chester resident was driving between 132 and 140 mph when the accident occurred according to West Goshen police.

The impact of the crash was so violent that the car was shattered into pieces and Dunn and Zachary were severely burned.

Aside from the sensational nature of the crash, it gained national attention because Dunn is a TV and film celebrity. Described as a daredevil and a prankster, he appeared on the MTV series “Jackass,” three movies based on the series, and other films.

Dunn’s blood-alcohol content was .196, twice the legal limit at the time of the accident, according to police.
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Pennsylvania State Police announced they made a record number of arrests for driving under the influence in 2010.

Commissioner Frank Noonan said state police made 17,695 DUI arrests last year, an increase of nearly five percent over the 16,900 DUI arrests reported in 2009.

Noonan said it was the ninth consecutive year in which the number of DUI arrests by state police increased.

At the same time, the number of alcohol-related crashes investigated by troopers dropped slightly.

Troopers investigated 4,595 alcohol-related crashes last year and 4,625 in 2009.

Noonan contributed the growing number of arrests to an expanded program that trains police to identify DUI drivers and PennDOT’s commitment to allocating funds for drunken driving enforcement.

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Improperly calibrated breathalyzer machines used by Philadelphia police could mean that more than 1,000 drunk-driving cases dating to September 2009 are in jeopardy, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Some of the Philadelphia Police Department’s eight breath-test machines weren’t set up properly before November of last year, leading to incorrect readings in 1,147 cases, authorities said.

“We screwed up, folks,” police Commissioner Charles Ramsey told reporters at a news conference. “We screwed up, plain and simple, and now we are paying for it.”
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Police throughout the state will be on the lookout for drunken drivers from St. Patrick’s Day through Saturday, state highway officials said.

Three sobriety checkpoints and 124 DUI saturation patrols are planned by 25 state and local law enforcement agencies in the next three days, said Alison Kirk of the state Office of Highway Safety.

Last year, 45 drivers were arrested for DUI during the St. Patrick’s Day crackdown.

This past weekend, members of the New Castle County DUI Task Force arrested 27 people on drunken driving charges, apprehended six fugitives, made seven drug arrests, confiscated one weapon and arrested five underage drinkers.

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Under current Pennsylvania law, a drunken driver has an incentive to flee the scene of a crash if the person kills someone, a local state legislator says.

If the driver stays at the scene and is arrested, the person faces a minimum of three years in prison.

The penalty is far less – one year in jail – for those who flee and are apprehended after the alcohol is out of their system.

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, wants to close the loophole. On Friday, she reintroduced legislation, House Bill 227, to change the law relating to hit-and-run crashes that are deadly or cause serious injury. Previous attempts have failed in the state House.
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A Philadelphia police officer is facing drunk driving charges after he allegedly visited a bar while on duty then drove his patrol car.

The suspect was arraigned Tuesday on DUI and other charges then released on his own recognizance after being charged in the November 7 incident.

Philadelphia police say the 42-year-old suspect is also charged with theft and misapplication of entrusted government property. He has been suspended with intent to dismiss.

A phone listing for the suspect could not immediately be located.

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Many Pennsylvania drivers underestimate ticketing for drinking and driving, state Department of Transportation survey results show.

And an overwhelming majority of drivers surveyed say they buckle up and turn off cell phones while driving.

“Absolutely, the majority of Pennsylvania drivers are good drivers, from a state police perspective,” said Lt. Myra A. Taylor of the Pennsylvania State Police.

She added that it is a bit frustrating to see a survey indicating a belief that drunken drivers are rarely ticketed.

“We do our best to get those drivers off the road,” she said.

More than half of the 3,800-plus people who took part in PennDOT’s Highway Safety Survey earlier this year said they rarely thought someone would be arrested or cited for impaired driving or not wearing a seat belt.

State police made about 400 arrests for drunken driving, and issued more than 1,000 seat-belt citations for drivers and children not properly wearing a seat belt during the Thanksgiving holiday (Wednesday to Friday.)

Most of the survey respondents indicated they use a seat belt all or most of the time. James Barnhart of New Freeport, Greene County, sees himself quickly joining the 92 percent of drivers surveyed who almost always buckle up.

“I will always be wearing a seat belt for work,” said the 34-year-old, who passed his commercial driver’s license test Thursday and will be required to buckle up on the job.
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Pennsylvania State Police made a record 16,900 drunken driving arrests last year, their eighth consecutive record-breaking year for DUI busts, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. At the same time, alcohol-related crash fatalities dropped to 141, a decline of 14 percent, and alcohol-related crashes investigated by state police declined about 1 percent, to 4,625. “It’s clear that our efforts to keep impaired drivers off our roads in Pennsylvania are having a positive impact,” police Commissioner Col. Frank E. Pawlowski said.

The 16,900 arrests in 2009 represented a 4 percent increase over the 16,156 arrests in 2008, state police reported. Col. Pawlowski said expansion of a drug recognition expert program and another program called Operation Nighthawk, which trains police to spot DUI motorists, fueled the department’s enforcement success. In Operation Nighthawk, a group of 40 to 50 state and municipal police officers gather at 6 p.m. on a Friday for about five hours of intensive training. Afterward, they go on roving patrols.

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