DRUNKEN DRIVING LAWS TOO LAX, TASK FORCE SAYS

STUDY RECOMMENDS CHECKPOINTS, STRINGENT PUNISHMENT

After a year of study, a task force headed by the Waukesha County district
attorney is recommending that Wisconsin legalize security checkpoints to nab
drunken drivers and to make first-offense drunken driving a crime rather
than a municipal ticket.

The recommendations were immediately applauded by Mothers Against Drunk
Driving and lambasted by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"To say that drunken driving is such a major problem that we should suspend
people's civil liberties because of that isn't persuasive to us," said
Christopher Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
of Wisconsin.

The ACLU strongly opposes making first-time drunken drivers subject to
criminal penalties and finds checkpoints particularly odious, he said.

"We believe by their very nature, they're going to be abused, and they're
going to stop people who are entirely innocent and who aren't doing anything
at all," Ahmuty said.

But Kristin Wegner, executive director of MADD in Wisconsin, said the group
wholeheartedly supports checkpoints and stiffer penalties for first-time
drunken drivers.

"We tell people that drunken driving is a crime, but it's a traffic offense
the first time you drive drunk," she said. "What kind of message is that
sending?"

Wegner noted that Wisconsin is one of only 10 states that forbids such
checkpoints.

And Wisconsin is the only state in which first-offense drunken driving is a
municipal ticket and not a crime, according to the Regional Center on
Impaired Driving at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

After a string of drunken driving deaths in late 1998, Waukesha County
District Attorney Paul Bucher recruited more than 100 citizens to serve on a
task force to look for ways to reduce drunken driving.

The task force also wants the Legislature to require absolute sobriety for
repeat drunken drivers. The intoxication limit for such drivers now is 0.08.
And the group has recommended that judges be mandated to suspend the
driver's licenses of juveniles ticketed for first-offense underage drinking.

The group recently sent its recommendations to Waukesha County's
legislators.

Several state legislators from Waukesha County did not immediately return
phone calls seeking comment Friday. But state Sen. Margaret Farrow (R-City
of Pewaukee) is a member of the task force.

Republican legislators said when the task force was formed they would
seriously consider the group's recommendations.

At least one task force member, however, dissented from the majority.

"If they're talking roadblocks, I think that's silly," said Jay Ross, a
member of the Waukesha County Tavern League. "Too many people would get
stopped."

Ross also opposes making first-offense drunken driving a misdemeanor, as the
task force has proposed. "That kind of puts social drinkers at risk, and I
don't like that," he said.

While the task force's recommendation have merit, they may be too ambitious,
said state Rep. Jeff Stone, who helped write a current bill seeking
increased penalties for drunken drivers and underage drinkers.

Stone (R-Greenfield) said because of privacy concerns it was unlikely
legislators would enact a law allowing checkpoints, where officers would
stop motorists and check them for intoxication.

Bucher said task force members knew their proposals would stir controversy
but agreed it was important to push their agenda.

"Just because this would be a difficult battle to fight doesn't mean we
should not fight," Bucher said. "Politically, we recognize that these are
difficult issues. It's definitely pushing the envelope. But due to the lives
at risk, we felt strongly it was needed."

The task force's proposals on absolute sobriety and the suspension of
driver's licenses for first-time underage drinkers closely mirror
initiatives contained in Stone's bill, passed by the Assembly last year and
now pending in the Senate.

But the Waukesha County version is tougher. For example, the current bill
would require a license suspension after the second underage drinking ticket
in one year, not the first, as the task force proposed. Unlike the task
force's recommendation for absolute sobriety for those with two or more
drunken driving convictions, Stone's bill would lower the intoxication limit
to 0.02 for those with three or more drunken driving convictions.

The 0.02 would allow for the presence of alcohol that might be in medicinal
products, such as cough syrup, Stone said.

Nina Emerson, director of the Resource Center on Impaired Driving, laughed
when asked how the Legislature would respond to the checkpoint proposal.

"It's always brought up," she said. "Even in discussion it gets shot down.
It really is not a popular subject here."