New York Weighs Tougher Stand on D.W.I. Cases

New York Weighs Tougher Stand on D.W.I. Cases
S

By JEREMY W. PETERS
Published: November 17, 2009
ALBANY — New York State would make it a felony to drive while intoxicated with a child in the vehicle and would require first-time convicted drunken drivers to buy a device that prevents them from driving their cars if they have been drinking, under a bill passed by the State Assembly on Tuesday.

The measure, which would significantly toughen penalties for drunken driving, could be passed by the Senate and sent to the governor this week. It would make New York the second state, after Arizona, in which drivers under the influence of alcohol could be charged with a felony if they have children as passengers.

New York would also be one of only a dozen states that force drivers convicted for the first time of drunken driving to install what is called an interlock device, which measures the alcohol content of a driver’s breath and prevents the engine from starting if it detects too high a level.

The push for harsher drunken-driving penalties follows two recent crashes in New York in which children were killed while traveling with adults who had been drinking.

In July, a Long Island woman drove the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway in Westchester County and killed eight people, including her 2-year-old daughter and three young nieces. The driver, who also died, had a blood alcohol content of 0.19 percent, more than double the 0.08 percent that qualifies as being intoxicated while driving, and had marijuana in her system.

And in October, an 11-year-old girl, Leandra Rosado, was killed after the mother of one of her friends, who has since been charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated, flipped her car on the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. The new law was named in honor of the girl.

Leandra’s father, Lenny Rosado, wept on Tuesday as he stood with lawmakers in the State Capitol to announce an agreement on the new stricter laws.

“Everyone who takes a drink and gets behind the wheel is going to think twice about driving whether there are children in the car,” Mr. Rosado said. “My daughter’s name and her death will make a difference.”

Under the measure, which Mr. Paterson has said he supports, drivers convicted of being drunk while carrying passengers 15 years or younger could face up to four years in prison.

Though the proposal was expected to get overwhelming support in the Legislature, some warned that the measure was not being given a thorough study.

“This bill has floated through so quickly, and I believe there are a lot of voices who would like to be heard,” said Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, a Democrat from Brooklyn. “They will never be heard, and the reason they will never be heard is because there’s too much emotionalism.”

Courts in New York convicted 37,695 people for drunken driving last year, and across the country people who drink and drive kill about 13,000 people a year.

Typically, the machines prevent vehicles from starting if there is even a small amount of alcohol on the driver’s breath, indicating a blood level of 0.02 to 0.05 percent.

A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit group financed by auto insurers, found that repeat drunken driving offenses dropped 65 percent among those with interlock devices.

Another study, by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, estimated that if the devices were more widely installed, they would save up to 750 lives a year. The devices are clearly not foolproof — a driver who has been drinking can use another car or have someone else breathe into the device. Some states install cameras in cars to prevent this, or require drivers to breathe into the machines at various intervals while driving.

Still, those who fight for tougher drunken driving laws lauded New York’s move, saying it would serve as a deterrent to those who casually get behind the wheel after drinking.

“This creates a very effective message: that drunk driving is not tolerated,” said Charles A. Hurley, chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. “The main reasons why drivers continue to drive drunk is because they can and because we let them. And interlocks stop that.”

Mr. Hurley said the combination of the two new laws would give New York the country’s most effective drunken-driving penalties. “New York really is the national model now,” he said.

Automakers and the federal government are now examining ways to make technology like ignition interlocks more widely available. A panel made up of car manufacturers and government officials has begun looking into ways that all vehicles might include systems that prevent impaired drivers from getting behind the wheel.

For example, they have studied sensors that could be installed in steering wheels that detect alcohol through the skin and devices that automatically measure alcohol in the ambient air of a vehicle’s interior.

“Interlocks are very effective in preventing recidivism, but the problem is they’re used in a tiny proportion of cases,” said Russ Rader, a spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Figures collected by institute showed that in 2007, the most recent year data was available, 146,000 ignition interlocks were in use in the United States, even though 1.4 million people were convicted of drunken driving.

Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California signed into law a pilot program making interlock devices mandatory for first-time drunken drivers in four counties, including Los Angeles and Sacramento.

Interlocks are in use in some form in 47 states, but most require them only for those who were found driving with an extremely high blood alcohol content or leave it to judges to decide whether they are used.