Drunk Driving DUI Law

A Council Bluffs, Iowa, teenager said she hopes to change the law in honor of her father, who died because someone else was driving drunk.

“No other 15-year-old girl should have to go through losing her dad or any other parent,” said Anna Jo Cowan.

Cowan’s father was killed in a crash in March. Investigators said a drunken driver in a white truck crossed the center line and hit his car head on. The other driver was also killed.

Now 16, Cowan said she wants to hold bars or restaurants liable for serving customers too much. Under current Nebraska law, businesses that serve alcohol cannot be held responsible if someone leaves the premises drunk and causes injury to someone else.

“I just want bars to be more responsible when they’re serving,” Cowan said. “I mean, this is a preventable crime.”

She has been making a case for a new law in front of groups. She proposes giving victims’ families the right to sue any licensed liquor establishments which serve someone who later causes death or injury.

“There doesn’t need to be another accident like the one we’ve gone through and the loss we’ve sustained,” said Anna’s mother, Michelle Cowan.

She said she couldn’t be more impressed by her daughter’s strength and courage in the wake of the tragedy.

“I’m very proud of her, very, very proud,” Michelle Cowan said.

“I just wanted to do it for my dad,” Anna Jo Cowan said. “I know he’d be really proud of me doing this.”

While she said her new mission won’t completely take her pain away, the work does help. She said she’ll never give up the fight.

“I’ll never be OK again, but this does help me,” Anna Jo Cowan said. “If I can get a law passed in Nebraska, that’s just one more step to going back to what I used to be.”

Similar laws have been introduced in the Nebraska Legislature in previous years but haven’t passed. A similar law applying to minors does currently exist.

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