Key DUI data may be added to driver records

How many drunken-driving arrests were there in Utah last year? Who knows.

A big, colorful graphic on Utah's Department of Public Safety Web site is eye-catching, but it is missing vital information about DUI arrests from more than half of Utah's 29 counties.

This site is the only statewide receptacle for computerized public information about drunken-driving offenses in Utah. However, graphics and accompanying information on the topic of drunken driving from the state's Bureau of Criminal Identification is inaccurate and illustrates the problem with reporting DUI issues in Utah.

So, the total number of DUI arrests in 2000 — 7,445 — "isn't the number," said Sgt. Doug McCleve, spokesman for the Utah Department of Public Safety. "We can't make them send us the information, and we can only publish what we have."

There were actually 15,469 arrests for DUI — which includes alcohol and drugs — according to the state's Driver License Division, which also has a collection of DUI data. Of those arrests, 10,336 resulted in DUI convictions.

Two states away, California produces what can only be called a statistical dream, according to those who want officials in the Beehive State to keep better track of DUI arrests, convictions and sentences.

The annual report of the California DUI Management Information System is a 144-page report that charts a bevy of DUI-related information — and this report has had a profound impact on California law surrounding DUI in the past decade, said Cliff Helander, research manager for the California State Department of Motor Vehicles.

"The systems in disarray have been exposed to the light, and improvements have been made," said Helander, who has worked on DUI issues in California for more than 20 years.

"When you monitor the system, it changes the way people do business."

"This report would be a dream," said Mary Phillips, who has lobbied hard for courts, cities and law-enforcement officials to better organize DUI information.

"What this provides for California and what it would provide for us is accountability about how we're doing in regards to DUI, because no one really does that here," said Phillips, who lost her teenage daughter to a drunken driver in 1995. "The data is available somewhere, but no one runs it in a way that makes sense."