But in the meantime, Denis had been arrested two more times.

When records are muddled and reporting procedures fail, a chronic drunken driver continually will be sentenced as if it is a first offense. Later — sometimes many years later — that person will kill someone in a horrific accident, and the public is left to wonder how someone with a string of prior DUI convictions could be on the road, driving with a valid license.

Simply put, courts and governments in Utah are completely unaccountable when it comes to drunken driving records. Look on the state's Department of Public Safety Web site. Fifteen of the state's 29 counties either didn't submit any data about DUI arrests in 2000, or they submitted incomplete data. In Davis County, the Sheriff's Department submitted its data in a format different from all the other entities.

None of them is held responsible for this. No law forces them to report.

Rest assured that chronic drunken drivers get the message. They can get away with anything.

Any tough new law the Legislature passes quickly becomes a joke. No one can tell which programs work and which are ineffective. No one can get a decent handle on the problem.

And a wary public is left with little confidence that the roads are safe.

A bill by state Rep. Lamont Tyler. R-Salt Lake City, would create a centralized data base to collect court information and make it easier to track information. That's good, but much more needs to be done. Every jurisdiction should be required to report every slice of information concerning a DUI arrest. No one should be able to fool the system.

Few areas of criminal law are as frustrating as this. Drunken drivers kill indiscriminately. Children, adults, the elderly, the rich, the poor, the educated and the people with few skills — all stand an equal chance of dying from this menace every time they leave the house.