April 5, 2012

MAKE DRUNKEN DRIVING COUNSELING MANDATORY
REPS. THOMPSON, GENGA SEEK LAW

Hartford Courant Editorial

By law, the licenses of those convicted a third time for drunken driving are revoked. Offenders may reapply for a license in six years. They then must use an automobile ignition interlock device, which detects blood-alcohol levels, for 10 years.

A bill that was approved by the state Legislature's joint Judiciary Committee on Monday reduces the waiting time for a new license from six to two years, but mandates the use of the interlock device for the rest of the driver's life.

At first glance, the change might seem to ease the penalty on three-time losers, but in fact it simply acknowledges a reality: Most repeat DUI offenders drive even without a valid license. The new provision reduces the no-license time so they may legally get to and from work, while effectively eliminating their driving while intoxicated. It's a common-sense adjustment.

The bill also includes a provision that unaccountably was taken out of the drunken-driving statutes last year. As The Courant's Jon Lender recently reported, before 2012, repeat offenders had to complete a 15-month education and counseling program at their own expense. That requirement is no longer state law, and it's difficult to say why not.

According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, the program was 93 percent successful in keeping participants from driving again while drunk. And it cost the state nothing. Why get rid of an apparently effective, life-saving freebie?

Perhaps the requirement got caught up in the statewide move to promote government efficiency, although there are hints that a tussle over who should handle the rehabilitation of drunken drivers — the DMV or the Judicial Branch's parole and probation wing — was a factor.

Exactly how this worthwhile initiative fell into the cracks is moot. The point now, as state Reps. Jack Thompson of Manchester and Henry Genga of East Hartford recently commented, is that "the state cannot allow 21,000 chronic alcohol abusers, who were mandated to complete this program, to get a pardon."

They are right. Legislators should pass the bill, complete with its restoration of the education program.