New tactics against DUIs offer glimmer of hope

• Benjamin Kent Olds, 20, University of Utah student and part-time employee of Wild Oats Market. Killed Jan. 9, 2000, when his car was hit by a drunken driver with a long history of driving while intoxicated.

• Brian Carlson, 30, avid cyclist and Purdue graduate. Lost his left leg and one month of his life to a coma in May 1999 when he was hit by a drunken driver with an expired driver's license and nine prior DUI arrests.

• Matthew Robert Affleck, 4-month-old who loved being snuggled by his mother and serenaded by his father. Died February 1999 of head injuries sustained when his parents' car was hit by a drunken driver with four prior DUI convictions.

Four prior DUI convictions.

Nine prior alcohol-related arrests.

Brutal accidents. Children and families lost.

With several high-profile drunken-driving fatalities in the public's recent memory, the grave subject of drinking and driving has emerged as a pressing public concern. But an analysis of drunken driving arrests and convictions in the Beehive State reveals a complicated morass of issues with several parties playing a careful version of The Blame Game.

And this set of circumstances, says Mary Phillips of the Utah chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, makes solutions complicated and excruciating.

"We have a huge accountability issue," said Phillips, who lost her teenage daughter to a drunken driver in 1995. "We can't say how our system reacts to a DUI. There are data issues. We have implementation issues. We have some great laws . . . but we don't have enough people in the system who have bought into these laws even though data shows that they work."

There are so many parties involved — police, judges, attorneys, advocates, court officials — and "no one takes the responsibility to follow the solutions through," Phillips said.

But renewed attention to drunken drivers and the way they are charged, convicted and counted has generated new solutions to this fiercely complicated problem. And advocates and law enforcement officers are optimistic that with more money and consideration, they can save lives of Utahns like Benjamin and Matthew.

"I don't think anyone has a concern about drunk drivers until it happens to them." — Theresa Olds, Evanston, Wyo., lost her son Benjamin to a drunken driver one year ago.