Sponsor waters down DUI legislation

To provide more flexibility to law enforcement, the sponsor of a bill that would significantly tighten DUI laws for adult drunken drivers with minors in their vehicles plans to slightly back off her original version.

Rep. Dana Love, R-Syracuse, said Friday that she is working on amendments to HB128 that would increase the blood alcohol content to .05 for any adult driving with minors under 18, and that the lowered limit would only apply to somebody with a previous DUI offense. Originally, the bill made it a DUI offense for any adult who had a level of .04 and was driving anyone under 18.

HB128 also adds a zero-tolerance provision for those nabbed driving on revoked or conditional licenses who have any amount of alcohol in their system. The enhanced penalty would include a class-B misdemeanor with jail requirements.

The changes were suggested after talks with law enforcement officials and now will only punish drivers who seem to have a habitual problem, said Love, who wants to keep Utah on the forefront of enforcement law.

"Most people learn their lessons," she said. "This targets the serious repeat offenders."

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which had not taken a position on the .04 provision, played a role in redrafting Love's bill, said Paul Boyden, executive director of the Statewide Association of Prosecutors.

"This is in line with a new study and recommendation from MADD," Boyden said.

In the MADD study, which began in 1999 and is soon to be released, experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, law enforcement, prosecutors, public health officials and others studied child endangerment as it relates to DUI, Utah's MADD director Art Brown said.

"Their recommendation was to target the problem people who haul their kids around and those are second offenders at the .05 level," said Brown. "The other recommendation was if you're hauling somebody young around you're going to get zero tolerance."

The Utah Substance Abuse and Anti-Violence Council also support Love's changes. Boyden said law enforcement agencies are also expected to concur. Police had expressed concerns about .04 blood alcohol level mostly because of its impact on enforcement.

UHP's 10-officer DUI enforcement team arrests an average of 14,000 drunk drivers annually. Most have an average blood alcohol level of .15, according to Lt. Steve Winward, who trains state troopers to conduct field sobriety tests.