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Picture this: You’ve got floor seats for a
sold-out concert, a date with the object of your obsession, a full set of
fresh threads, and your hair looking like it just can’t help being
perfect. You’re cruising toward St. Louis when suddenly you hear
beeps that don’t harmonize with the tasteful tunes on your car
stereo.
“What’s that?” asks the hottie in
the passenger seat as you start humming and blowing into a box linked to
your dashboard. Do you try a lie and say you have a severe form of
asthma? Claim your car is an experimental hybrid that operates on gasoline
and hot air? Or do you admit that it’s a Breathalyzer, and it’s
attached to your car because you caught a ticket for DUI? The only Illinois motorists faced with this dilemma
right now are people who have amassed a significant collection of citations
and relinquished their driver’s licenses for several months while
undergoing evaluation, counseling, and treatment for alcohol addiction. But
a bill pending in the Illinois General Assembly would make breath alcohol
ignition-interlock devices — or BAIIDs — standard equipment for
first offenders.
That means you’d have to pass a Breathalyzer
test to turn on your car engine, and take random “rolling
retests” while driving. If the bill passes, Illinois will become just the
second state in the nation to essentially require BAIIDs for first
offenders. The bill is sponsored by Sen. John Cullerton, who got
the idea from Chuck Hurley, chief executive officer of Mothers Against
Drunk Driving. Hurley, fluent in both scientific citations and
bumper-sticker-speak, can reel off a list of 17 peer-reviewed studies that
prove BAIIDs work. “The main reason why drunk drivers continue to
drink and drive is because they can. Interlocks stop that,” Hurley
says. “Drive drunk, get a box.”
Cullerton emphasizes that this legislation —
Senate Bill 300 — is still a work in progress. “There’s
still some implementation issues,” he says.
Since a brief conversation with a BAIID lobbyist
— Debra Coffey, “director of judicial services” for Smart
Start — I’ve realized that these implementation issues might be
where the fun starts. BAIID manufacturers can customize their units to fit
state regulations, tinkering with everything from circumvention prevention
to consequences for skipping rolling retests.
For example, to ensure that it’s the actual
driver (rather than a passenger or a balloon) blowing into the BAIID, these
devices can require the test-taker to hum while blowing, or blow and then
suck. Although you theoretically could train a friend to do that trick for
you, this friend would then have to be willing to ride along and keep
taking the random retests. “We hope that common sense kicks in, but it
doesn’t always,” Coffey admits. Of course, if the motorist opts to ignore the beeping
sound and just keep driving, the BAIID won’t shut off the engine
— that would be dangerous. But the devices can be programmed to make
the car horn start blaring or the headlights start flashing, so everyone
else on the road knows: Hey, there goes a drunken driver! If Cullerton’s bill passes, BAIID licenses
— or “blow to go” licenses — would replace the
current system of “judicial driving permits,” which are
available to first offenders who can prove a need to drive to and from
work, school, or medical treatment. It’s a system, Hurley says, that
isn’t working.
“The nationwide statistics say that two-thirds
of the people who get judicial driving permits continue to drink and
drive,” he says. The most recent data Hurley can cite for Illinois are
from 2005, when 580 people died in alcohol-related car crashes. That number
translates to 43 percent of traffic deaths that year, compared with a
national average of 39 percent, according to Hurley. Meanwhile, in New Mexico — the one state that
has adopted BAIID laws for first-time offenders — alcohol-related
traffic fatalities have declined by 28 percent. To some people, this idea sounds like a sea change
that deserves careful consideration. Henry Haupt, deputy press secretary to
Secretary of State Jesse White — whose office would be charged with
issuing and monitoring these new permits — says he’s keeping an
open mind.
“We want everyone’s voice to be
heard,” he says. “We want to make sure whatever we do reduces
crashes and fatalities.”
Bob Howlett, deputy director of the Illinois Sheriffs
Association, is similarly skeptical. “This is a radical change that needs to be
discussed a little more in depth before just jumping out there and having
everyone purchase a BAIID device,” he says. Marti Belluschi, a gravely injured DUI crash survivor
who serves on the board of the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, says
that although AAIM “strongly favors the concept” of the
legislation, the group would prefer some requirement for evaluation and
counseling before anybody is issued a BAIID. “Before somebody is able to get behind the
wheel, they need to be taking action toward changing their behavior and
dealing with their problem,” she says. Hurley, however, doesn’t view this question as
a chicken-and-egg issue. “This would drive people into the treatment
that they need,” he says.
Contact Dusty Rhodes at drhodes@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Apr 19-25, 2007.
