Roger Goodman, a longtime advocate of drug-policy reform who’s now a state representative from Kirkland, took issue with my post earlier this week about a new law he sponsored that makes it easier for people convicted of driving drunk, including repeat offenders, to get their licenses back. I wrote that the law, which mandates ignition interlock devices, implies that the right to drive is more important than the safety of others on the road, and noted that interlock devices are relatively easy to cheat.
I talked to Goodman on New Year’s Eve. He told me the reason he wants to restore DUI offenders’ driving rights isn’t because he thinks the right to drive is sacred, but because people with suspended licenses often drive anyway. Better that they do it, he argues, with a valid license and an interlock device than do so with no license and no device. “Locking them up, fining them, suspending their license does very little at all” to keep DUI offenders off the road, Goodman says. “These are law-abiding people who have made a bad judgment call about having too many glasses of wine. These are people who are embarrassed and want to avoid the stigma and they will comply.”
But what about people who cheat the device by getting a sober friend to blow into it? Goodman says that new ignition interlock devices require drivers to blow into the device periodically while driving, making them tough, though not impossible, to cheat. (If a driver blows over a certain blood-alcohol level, the horn starts blaring and the lights start flashing—safer than having the car shut down, though arguably a dangerous distraction if you’re driving drunk). “The technology’s going to keep getting better,” Goodman says—already, devices exist that test blood-alcohol content through a driver’s skin, making them less obtrusive (and embarrassing) than devices you have to blow into.
Fundamentally, Goodman sees the new law as a harm-reduction approach—meeting people where they’re at (driving with suspended licenses) instead of where we wish they’d be (not driving at all). He compares it to reducing penalties for small-time drug offenders rather than throwing them in jail. “We’ve been locking them up, and they just get out and drive drunk again. Let’s just get real and acknowledge what people are doing out there. If someone says, ‘so much for getting tough on drunk driving,’ my response is, let’s get smart about it.” As for whether the state should ever say enough is enough, Goodman says, “Frankly, I don’t think that even if you’re convicted of vehicular homicide that you should be ineligible” for a license. However, “I believe if you have three DUIs you should have the device on your car forever.”
Personally, although I support harm reduction when it comes to victimless drug crimes, I think there’s a point at which we ought to lock drunk drivers up for a good long while. (I also think roadside checkpoints on weekend nights downtown and outside sports stadiums aren’t a bad idea, although some of my colleagues would say that raises civil-rights issues.) We wouldn’t keep giving someone a gun license if they got drunk and shot someone, and we shouldn’t keep giving someone a license to drive if they get drunk, get behind the wheel, and kill someone with their car. On the other hand, MADD strongly supports laws that mandate ignition devices, so maybe Goodman’s law is a good first step… but it shouldn’t be the only step.
You should add that your beliefs don’t apply to Venus Velazquez.
Goodman is right.
And, your colleagues are right, roadside checkpoints ARE civil rights violations.
And, Goodman’s logic is correct. People who don’t have licenses still drive. Having a device, regardless of the ability to cheat the device, put on their car will help. And, the people will have a license.
On the other hand, while we make it easier for people to get their licenses back, we should also make the punishments increasingly harsher, including time in jail, rehab, and more time on probation.
I really hate drunk driving, and used to be very active in MADD (but many of those ladies have ISSUES). But I do agree with most of Goodman’s points–and one that he didn’t bring up, which is that drunk drivers on suspended licenses also don’t have insurance… which means if they hit somebody, the victim is often SOL. Better to have them deterred with the interlock and insured, than have them maim somebody who then has to clean up the drunk’s mess.
And what lesson did we learn from ranting on the Slog first and then later having a civil conversation with someone with a different point of view? This here is one of those opportunities to grow as a person.
He’s obviously soft on crime.
After all, every time I see someone weaving in and out of traffic, my first thought isn’t “What a lousy driver” or “OMFG that driver is high on legally-prescribed Oxycontin”, it’s “I’ll bet they’ve been drinking at some Republican fundraiser and just enjoy killing small children”.
Then they hit the bus and Darwin takes over. Potential and Kinetic energy transfer and all is well.
Why are roadside checkpoints civil rights violations?
If all they do is make everyone take a breathalizer – period, nothing else – then what’s wrong with that?
Thanks for the follow up and clarification for the idiots who posted after your initial article, Erica.
For example..
“Gee, I bet if someone digged, they’d find many Kirkland bar owner.s contributed to Goodman’s last campaign.” -Dave
Idiot.
Goodman’s attempt at curbing the harmful effects of repeat drunk drivers should be commended. The Federal DOT thought so- and awarded him a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Safety Champions Award (the first state legislator from WA to earn this award).
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/east_king/re…
Goodman’s is a common sense approach that WILL reduce the effects of repeat drunk drivers- there were 100 less deaths in New Mexico after that state passed a similar law in 2006.
As hard as it may be for some to phathom these people have to get to work, daycare, healthcare etc. and while most people comply with current law the hardcores will drive and do so drunk.
Cheers to Roger Goodman and his common sense approach to this public safety nightmare. ANY piece of legislation that MADD and defense attorneys agree on is nothing short of a miracle.
@7
A search without probable cause is still a search without probable cause.
Are these required on all the cars a person may drive? Can they detect subsequent breathing after the car gets going? Will a violation of use (cheating the machine) result in prison time? Will drivers ever be held responsible for maiming and killing others? If not, I suggest this bill be strengthened. Perhaps your most local representative on the correct committee might be able to help out. I’ll certainly contact mine.
I wouldn’t mind drunk checkpoints if the cops were prohibited from pursuing any other violation, no matter how blatant: expired tabs, bale of weed in back seat, etc. Instead they’d probably arrest more Mexican illegals leaving their bar jobs than drunks.
I don’t buy that people who have received DUIs are “law-abiding people who have made a bad judgment call about having too many glasses of wine.”
Drinking too many glasses of wine is not the problem. Hell, I do that on a regular basis, and my driving record is pure as the driven snow.
The problem is drinking too much and GETTING BEHIND THE WHEEL OF A CAR. There’s really no judgment required when it comes to drinking and driving. If you’ve been drinking, you don’t drive. It’s simple.
Of course, Washington State’s legal BAC of 0.08 doesn’t help, since it implies that having one or two beers before you get behind the wheel is acceptable. I like the Swedish model, where the legal BAC is 0.02 and there’s none of these “If I have four beers, I should be fine to drive in two hours” calculations.
@7 Because just driving a car is not reasonable cause for search (i.e., make you submit to a breath test). If you’re weaving or seen drinking out of a bottle in your car or seen stumbling through the parking lot to your car, there’s reasonable cause that you might be drunk.
The only other examples I can think of where this sort of thing is allow are US Customs (courts have ruled the feds have the right to control what comes into the country) and the TSA. In both of those cases, you know you’ll always be searched in a specific place at a specific time. You’re not just going to be going about your everday business and suddenly find yourself crossing the border or boarding an airplane. This is not true for sobriety checkpoints, even where there are requirements to announce their specific locations and times publicly beforehand.
There’s no other case where law enforcement stops everybody in a given place without cause with the intent to determine if they’re breaking the law. People would be up in arms if the police stopped cars or individuals on the street looking for drugs, fireworks, stolen goods, etc. without cause.
@12
Well yes I agree, but now matter how WE happen to feel about this issue other people will tip toe the .08 line (no roadside sobriety test pun intended).
This is much needed, common sense legislation.
how about this:
pulled over for DUI, you get the breatho-car metere.
kill someone while driving drunk, you get $100,000 fine and fifteen years in jail. you fucker. also, no license again. ever. sorry. walk or ride a bus/bike to work.
i refuse to feel sorry for murderers who drive cars.
@15 This isn’t about feeling sorry for murderers, but common sense that acknowledges reality.
The logic you use follows the same logic that people who preach abstinence education use. If we tell them they can’t fuck, they won’t fuck. But, kids do fuck, and they won’t fuck safely.
This is the same as: if we tell them they can’t drive, they won’t drive. But, they will drive, and they won’t drive safely.
I know people who don’t have licenses and still drive. (They didn’t get into an accident, or drive drunk…they had it revoked due to too many moving violations, and/or not paying fines) Its easy to do this. I KNOW it is the same for people who are DUI as well. I’ve read many stories about repeat DUI offenders who don’t have their license.
To do it this way allows for stricter controls over the vehicles. Which are the means of driving. Having a license is not the means to drive…at least until a driver’s license replaces the key as a way to start the car. And, really, having the breatholyzer starter does work to a certain extent.
How about considering this issue that nobody ever considers? The chief danger on the roads is posed by alcoholics who drive very smashed all the time. Drinkers barely over the legal limit pose less danger than cell-phone users. Therefore, draconian punishment of drinkers barely over the line will have a very tiny effect on accident statistics. If you feel that even one needless accident is too high a price to pay, the take-no-prisoners Scandinavian attitude to drinking and driving may be what we as a society want. But do we destroy the lives of cellphone drivers? Do we treat them the same as chronic extreme DUIs? Under the influence of MADD, we have declared war on everyone .01 ounce over the limit, as if the risk posed by drink and driving were not a continuum. Is this quite scientific? Should we consider altering laws to punish borderline DUIs differently than the DU-VERY-I drivers who constitute the real problem? If not, should we not come down on cellphone drivers with the same full force of fury that we now reserve for all DUIs, no matter how close they are to the legal line? Discuss.
okay. i know. i know that people are going to drive no matter what. people are too often awful and thoughtless to think otherwise.
it’s just that i get emotional when i think about DUI killers. i can’t help but consider them scum — no matter how sorry they are. or who they are. you cannot get in a car drunk ignorant of the risks you are taking. not anymore.
and i think if you are drunk and driving a car and you hit — and kill — someone, you need to pay. you need to go to jail. you need to suffer terribly for those actions. the drunk driving is one thing, but the killing of innocents is another that requires an entirely different set of deterrents and punishments.
of course, we live in a sick society when it comes to automobiles. if you hit, and permanently brain damage, somebody while driving a car and are not drunk, you don’t even get a ticket. there’s no law against maiming people while driving, unless you are drunk or “driving recklessly.” i go crazy thinking about this. driving is a privilege with terrible consequences that are not recognize.
thus, in my perfect doug world, drunk driving murderers get onerous jail time and life-ruining fines. it’s pretty fucking goddamn easy to not drive drunk, so what’s the big deal?
“Because just driving a car is not reasonable cause for search”
Maybe that needs to change.
@18 You sound like this asshole I wanted to punch on NYE. Having late night brunch at Martin’s, there was this decent looking guy with his entourage. At least it seemed like they were his entourage, as they seemed to hang on his every word. I’d call them The Pansy Division.
Anyways, this asshole loudly tells everybody that he can’t fathom addiction because he has such a STRONG personality that he could never be addicted to anything, as he takes another sip from his alcoholic drink. And, he has no sympathy for anybody who is an addict as he doesn’t have the mental comprehension for it. Compensating much? His entourage ate it up.
Being these things is OK, despite them making you be a weakling who really needs to be smashed in the face with a hot iron. But, announcing them to the bar (I was 2 tables over) is not, especially when you’re sloshed yourself.
The reason you remind me of that is because you are now rambling on about things which have no relevance to the current topic at hand. Just as this rant kind of doesn’t. The emotions behind drunk driving (it sounds like you lost somebody dear to you due to somebody else’s drunk driving) blinds you to the actual facts and subject at hand.
Maybe if you got over whatever hurdles you have and come back to Earth on this subject, you would realize that in many cities, its not nearly as easy as you think to not drive drunk. And, this step towards stopping the action is better than the last one, and these steps just need to be followed by other, harsher, laws with drunk driving.
@19 Shut up, totalitarian. Move to Russia if you want state control over everything.
“i go crazy thinking about this”
obviously
I’d like Goodman to explain in more detail why he thinks people with three DUIs should be allowed to drive cars at all.
So, you could have asked him to explain his reasoning beforehand and gotten this thoughtful response (whether you agree or not, it’s clear he’s thought this through). Instead you dashed off one of your one-sided, misrepresentative, intellectually dishonest, sarcastic and belittling posts.
And some people wonder why you are so disliked. You’ve earned it.
For the people who are still insisting that this is too lenient let me turn it around: If Goodman is right and this has been shown to bring down incidences of DUI-related accidents in other places, then by opposing this you are actually lending your support to a policy that will kill innocent people. Murderers.
There. See how unfortunate using that kind of charged rhetoric can be? See how it clouds the issues?
Oh, and bravo to commenter @17 above for really nailing it.
@20 – “…you would realize that in many cities, its not nearly as easy as you think to not drive drunk. “
Could you explain what makes not driving drunk harder than I (or whoever) would think? And in what cities? I’m not #18 but you got me wondering.
@21 Re: Russia
Damn, that phrase went out of currency for nearly two decades, but it’s totally usable again.
@4 Insurance really is a huge reason. Uninsured motorist rates have spiked in this state because a fifth of all drivers have no insurance and most of the rest have too little. Making sure these guys are insured (and are paying the right rates) would be a service to us all. As it stands, they’re free riders that you and I subsidize.
@25 Nicely put. Thank you.
there is no ‘right to drive’. AT ALL.
No, in every city and every podunk small town in this country it’s extremely easy to avoid drunk driving. It’s called drinking at home or drinking at a friend’s house and then crashing on the couch.
I was charged with a DWAI in the state of colorado, for driving at .09 BAC at the age of 20. If it had been six months later it would have been completely legal, but now I’m in company with four time repeat offenders – the kind of guys who repeatedly blow over .15 BAC’s. Goodman is right – I live in Boulder, CO, probably the best town in the US as far as alternative transportation is concerned, and the temptation to drive without my license is still immense. If I lived anywhere else, there would be no question about it – I would be driving. Interlock machines may not be the perfect answer, but theyre the right idea. Also, I think these laws should be more progressive…theres no reason I should be treated the same way by the system as people who get caught blackout drunk – i was just driving a friend home after a couple drinks, completely in control. Definitely a touchy issue – and theres no easy answer.
@ 30, you’re right, it is easy to avoid drunk driving even while living in places without public transit or cabs. I lived in one of those places for a few years and it was irritating not having the luxury of hanging out at a bar now and again. So I agree with you, just adding to your statement: it’s easy, it’s worth it, & it’s dull.
Also, I think starting non-profit cab companines in such areas would be a good cause. There were 2 or 3 cab companies in the area previously, but they all went under. I suppose there simply weren’t enough people in the area to support them. Anyway, when I lived there, people drove drunk all the time. If you can’t stop them (and they couldn’t, despite checkpoints), it’s time to look into alternatives.
What happens if they drive someone else’s car? Do they have a special liscence saying they can only drive their own car?
@17,
Dead on. There’s a reason former State Senator Marlin Applewick held up the expansion of all DUI laws from .10 offenders to .08 offenders, which is that he knew that it would clog up the system by criminalizing a shit ton of social drinkers who statistically don’t pose a meaningful threat to the public to the detriment of aggressively going after serious repeat offenders.
Yeah, FNARF and all of you other uber tough-on-DUI types, I can already hear you shrieking about what big potential killers all of those marginal offenders are, and it’s true that a very few of them may well indeed turn out to be killers, but the truth is that most of the people who cause fatal DUI accidents were pulled over multiple times WAY above .10 before they got there.
And to everyone who wants to abrogate the 4th Amendment in a rush to prove how tough on DUI’s you are, you sound a lot more like hysterical tough-on-crime right wing blog bitches than you’d be comfortable with in the cold light of day/facts/statistics.
That said, you should have seen all of the idiots on the road tonight. I hope they got home safely.
why are you comparing me to someone at a bar? huh?
i thought this post was generally about DUI laws, and whether or not they are “tough enough” or not. so i thought that my opinion on weather or not DUI laws are tough enough or not was kind of relevant.
also, i have not lost anyone to drunk driving. however, i used to live in rural northern california, where every week I would read about people getting run over and killed by DUI, three teenagers killed by DUI, five people in a car drowning due to a DUI accident, etc. Then I would read about DUI sentences being reduced due to the offender being a veteran of the iraq war.
It really started driving me crazy. Obviously. Good thing this is a blog, where we can write whatever we want!
I understand addiction. But when your addiction runs over and kills people, too fucking bad, you’re a killer. Or maybe at least a manslaughterer since you probably know what you’re doing when you get in that car drunk.
Maybe we should do something before that happens. I guess that’s where Goodman comes in, right? And other DUI laws?
@27 Thank you. 🙂 Its the only good thing to come out of Russia of late.
@30 If you want to be dull. Or, if you want to pay a $30 cab ride to and from your place. I prefer going out to clubs or bars, but because I didn’t have anybody else who lived near me, I couldn’t drink. So, I had to be sober, and the pressure to drink was intense. I’m sure people who like to drink, or give in to pressure, more than I do would have found it tougher in my situation to do the same.
@35 Whine whine whine, emotion emotion emotion.
I’m comparing you to somebody at a bar because you sound as ridiculous as that person. If this were a trial, and I was a lawyer, I’d have you dismissed off the jury due to emotional bias.
Tougher laws are generally not reducers of crime, especially repeat offenders. Its when we do something to help them stop the behavior…or at least think before they act…that the crime is reduced.
I wonder why people believe that folks who cheat by continuing to drive won’t continue to cheat the system but having someone else blow for them or some other mechanism. When Goodman claims that the problem is a few folks who had one too many glasses of wine is the problem, you see his bias. If you drink and drive and get caught you should have your license revolked. Period. 1st time. Every time. If you do it again and get caught-go to prison. It’s not a victimless crime. The fact that some group gave Goodman an award means exactly nothing. There are lots of reasons the system wants to keep drivers on the road. Any who in the world thinks that those folks will continue to keep up their insurance and follow every law when the broke the most basic, fundamental law in the first place. Drunk driving should have no sympathizers.
@37 Read my comments to doug.
That’s it. Go back there and read it.
And, realize, that people, when sober, have a much higher chance than when they’re sober.
If you can find some way to prevent people from actually having a vehicle, then I would support that more than just revoking their license. That’s just a fucking symbolic gesture on a meaningful par with Congress writing letters of disdain to the President (while still giving him free reign), or most of the acts of the U.N. Revoking licenses rarely does anything, and everybody loses because the people can much more easily drive again.
#38
And, realize, that people, when sober, have a much higher chance than when they’re sober.
Uh, what?
@23, it really don’t think that it as issue that they should be able to drive, I think it’s the simple fact that they still will drive, regardless if they have a license, at which point what do they really have to lose, their license? Do we throw them in jail? I’d be for throwing them in jail if I had any belief in the rehabilitative power of the prison system, so far all I’ve seen it do is create smarter more dangerous criminals. I’d rather take the lessor of two evils.
@39 Heh. Good catch. Blame the boyfriend for that one as he was trying to boot me off the computer at that point.
That should read:
People, when sober, have a higher chance of following the law than when drunk.
By which I mean that, if these people aren’t 24/7 alcoholics, they will have a higher chance of getting insurance (provided it is within their means), and drive safely and within legal limits. It is for these cases that we can help with this new law.
If we prevent them from doing legally what they can do illegally, then we raise the risk that what they are doing is done dangerously. Whereas if we allow people to do legal things, but with restrictions (such as breathalyzer starters), there is a lesser chance of dangerous behavior.
I would also assume this is the thought process behind the governors that are installed in every car.
Among the many other points that have been made so far, it’s also worth pointing out that the gun analogy in the original post is insultingly inapt.
People drive without a license because in most cases, their family’s livelihood depends upon it. Revoking someone’s gun license doesn’t cause someone to lose their job because they can’t get to work anymore (unless they’re a gun safety instructor, I guess).
Yeah, yeah: then get a different job! Move closer to a transit line! If you actually think people are going to do that, rather than simply drive unlicensed and uninsured, then you are officially blinded by emotion and have lost sight of the practical consequences at stake here.