Joint NHTSA/CDC study finds high percentage of DUI repeat offenders

Modern Brewery Age, Nov 7, 1994

One third of the people arrested each year for drunk driving have been arrested before for the same offense, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC recently joined with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in examining statistics from seven states that count previous DUI arrests.

Of the 1,010,054 DUI arrests studied, 320,570 people had been previously arrested for driving under the influence, they found. The percentage of repeat offenders ranged from 21% in Iowa to 48% in New Mexico.

"We're not surprised at all by that figure," said Beckie Brown, national president of Mothers against drunk driving, the organization that led the fight to enact tougher penalties against drivers convicted of DUI.

She said she believed the figure is actually higher, because many states wipe an offender's record clean after a certain time frame. Those arrests wouldn't be included in the new study, she said. "We call on all states to get rid of time flames for drunk driving."

Last year, a number of states moved to combat the problem of repeat drunken driving offenders, according to Jim Fell of the federal highway agency. Five states introduced bills to confiscate vehicles of repeat offenders, 15 others are considering bills to expand penalties and five others may increase prison sentences, he said.

Most state legislatures are not in session now, and Fell said he didn't know the status of the bills.

"There's a lot of concern in the states, as there should be," he said, "THE NHTSA wants states to combine more severe penalties with improvements in alcohol treatment."

Young men and those who had a history of traffic violations were most likely to repeat the offense, according to the report, which did not provide a breakdown on those arrested for DUI.

The 1% of the nation's licensed drivers arrested each year for drunken driving are at greater risk of being involved in a fatal crash.

And more than half of those arrested on DUI charges have severe alcohol problems, said Dr. Brewer of the CDC. "These are startling statistics," he said. "We feel this suggests the need for states to enact stricter laws governing legal limits for alcohol intoxication, mandatory substance abuse programs and penalties for breaking DUI laws."

The standard for legal intoxication in 45 states is a blood alcohol content of .10%, which for a 160-lb man translates into five drinks in an hour on an empty stomach.

The country is making headway in some areas of alcohol-related traffic safety, previous studies have shown. In 1982, alcohol accounted for 57.2% of the 43,495 traffic fatalities. But a decade later, that dropped to 45% of the 39,500 road deaths, according to the NHTSA. The states providing statistics for the latest study were Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina and Ohio.