Local lawmakers attempt to increase drunken driving penalties

BY JANINE ANDERSON
Journal Times

Thursday, June 19, 2008 10:54 AM CDT

RACINE COUNTY — This week, four people were charged with drunken driving felonies.

One of them faces her seventh drunken driving charge. Another was found allegedly drunk, with two children in the car.

Alcohol is a factor in one-third of the state’s traffic accidents, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Wisconsin’s drunken driving laws have been criticized for being too lenient. First-offense drunken driving is a municipal offense only. Second through fourth offenses are misdemeanors unless minors are passengers in the vehicle. Felony charges start with the fifth offense.

The state lowered the legal blood-alcohol concentration limit for drunken driving from .10 percent to .08 percent five years ago, to maintain federal highway assistance. Millions of dollars would have been lost if the state held onto its .10 percent limit.

Drunken driving, particularly by repeat offenders, is a topic two Racine County state legislators feel strongly about.

Rep. Robin Vos, R-Caledonia, and Sen. John Lehman, D-Racine, have been working on different parts of the state’s drunken driving laws, to try increasing penalties.

“It’s one of those things that I have always thought was a little bit crazy, that in Wisconsin we do not treat drunken driving as the serious offense that it is,” Vos said.

“I understand why we want to give people a second chance. People do make mistakes, but if you’re a repeat offender you’ve lost the right to say you’ve made a mistake.”

Vos said he was spurred to action when David Penkalski was killed in a crash early on June 3. Penkalski, of South Milwaukee, was driving to work in Kenosha when Martimiano Montano’s vehicle crossed the center line and struck Penkalski’s vehicle head-on. Montano was allegedly drunk at the time, and has two prior convictions for drunken driving.

“Here is a guy that was doing nothing more than driving down the highway,” Vos said. “He left his family behind. To see someone who has repeatedly broken the law, I guess I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy.”

Vos wants to see much higher penalties after the second offense, with the opportunity to have someone’s license taken away.

“Saying the penalties are not going to get severe until your fifth offense is too much leniency,” he said. “God forbid they kill someone before they get there.”

Like Vos, Lehman started really working on drunken driving legislation issues after a fatal crash. For Lehman, it was the August 2006 crash that killed Michael Havn. One of his concerns is just how drunk someone is, particularly for first- and second-offense drunken drivers.

“We talk about it as a ‘very drunken driving’ bill,” Lehman said. “Shouldn’t there be an increased penalty for someone who is knowingly super-inebriated and goes out there and violates traffic law and goes out there and hurts somebody? That bill we have worked on very, very hard.”

That bill, Lehman said, went through the state Senate hearing process but was not scheduled for a vote.

But changing penalties, especially for people who do not have lengthy histories of drunken driving problems, is difficult.

“There’s a huge debate about first- and second-time drunken drivers, especially when they’re just slightly over (the legal limit),” Lehman said.

Vos said a bipartisan group of legislators is working to strengthen penalties for drunken driving. A bill passed last session increased penalties for those convicted of five or more drunken driving offenses.

The Legislature is out of session until January, but Lehman said two state senators are working on a new ignition interlock bill. Ignition interlock devices test someone’s alcohol level before the car will start.

Special Offer: Get 5 Weeks of the Journal Times for $7!