California clamps down on drunken drivers

Press, 13 January 1982, Page 16

California clamps down on drunken drivers

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

California. with more motor vehicles and more drivers than all but five nations, is imposing new severe penalties in an effort to reduce fatalities caused by drunken drivers.

The get-tough measures, most stringent in the nation, were adopted by the state legislature as the result of vigorous lobbying led by a group of mothers whose children were hurt or killed by drivers under the influence of liquor. More than 77,000 persons were injured or killed in "alcohol-involved” accidents in Californian motor traffic in 1980. Officials blame about half the 5489 traffic deaths on drinking. Statistics for 1981 are not yet published but they are expected to be similar. The new law limits the discretion of judges, particularly in the previously rather common practice of suspending sentences on various grounds of -extenuating circumstances. The law, like the earlier one, sets one-tenth of one per cent alcohol in .the blood as evidence of drunkenness, but it no longer countenances such defences as' the claim that the

alcohol level was affected by some medication taken by the driver, or that he has a higher than average tolerance for drink. Now’ it is flatly a crime for anyone to drive if blood, urine or breath samples show the limit, and a driver who refuses a test can be auto-

matically suspended from driving for six months, and suffer other court penalties. An escalating range of penalities for subsequent offences can ultimately result in 120 or more days in jail and revocation of the driver’s licence for three years. A judge may also require a convicted driver to attend educational courses or submit to extended treatment for alcoholism. Some local authorities fear that their already overcrowded jails will> be hopelessly swamped. Officials say no . American studies have been made to determine whether rising severity of laws against drunken driving actually deter the practice. Several states have recently adopted harsher new laws, although none as restrictive as California's. The new regimen went inter effect at the stroke of midnight

on January 1. Widely publicised in advance, it seems to have had immediate results, in a lower number than expected in arrests of New Year’s Eve revelers. The California Highway Patrol reported a drop of 20 per cent below the figure a year earlier.

California, with far more licensed drivers and registered vehicles than any other state, stands about midway among them in traffic safety, with 3.5 deaths per 100 million miles driven. Of the 50 states, 27 have the same, or worse, rates. California’s neighbour, Nevada, has the worst record of all: 5.9 deaths. Poorly served by public transportation, California is remarkably dependent on the private automobile. Of its 24 g million people, nearly 16 million are licenced to drive its 17 million motor vehicles on 140,000 kilometres of road, exclusive of those within municipalities. This year, the state will recruit to add 670 patrolmen to the statewide force of 4700 which millions of television viewers around the * world identify in “CHiPs.”