New law toughens repeat-DUI penalties

A new law made it into the books Friday. It's one that restricts the amount of alcohol one can drink before driving if the individual has had previous offenses involving alcohol.

Anyone convicted of the following offenses may not have the least measurable amount of alcohol in their system if stopped by an officer: driving under the influence, refusal to submit to a chemical test, alcohol-related reckless driving or automobile homicide. Utah's legal level of blood alcohol as a presumption for inebriation is .08 for those who have not been convicted of these offenses.

Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson had a piece of advice for anyone who wants to party hardy with alcohol this weekend:

"Stay off the road."

Anderson spoke at a press conference Friday to kick off the new law and an enforcement campaign in which officers plan to work overtime finding impaired drivers over the July Fourth weekend.

Anderson said he hopes the new law has a deterrent effect.

Anyone convicted of one of the aforementioned offenses will be put on alcohol restriction, which means that for two years, one cannot be found driving with any alcohol in his system.

If he is stopped by a law enforcement officer and found to have consumed alcohol in any amount, the restriction will be extended to 10 years.

If it happens again, the restriction will be in effect for the rest of the offender's life.

Historically, Anderson said, July Fourth is the deadliest holiday with about 17,000 people killed and 500,000 people injured each year across the country.

Sen. Carlene M. Walker, R-Salt Lake, who sponsored the new law, said chemical test refusals are becoming a problem for law enforcement officers in Utah.

A person with a blood-alcohol content of .15, which is about twice Utah's legal limit, has 380 times the likelihood of crashing as someone with a blood-alcohol content of .14, she said.

She said she hopes to curb refusals with this law.

"Buckle up. Drive sober. And have a happy and safe Independence Day," she said.

Paul Boyden is director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors and helped write the legislation that became the alcohol restricted driver law.

He said the point of the law isn't to turn drunken drivers into felons. The point is to get them into the courtroom so a judge can order them to have counseling, treatment and/or education.

Seventy percent of people convicted of driving under the influence won't do it again, he said. The rest are responsible for half of traffic fatalities.

"There are very few laws you can measure in human life," Boyden said. "This is one of them."

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E-mail: jdougherty@desnews.com