By Doug Thompson
The Morning News
LITTLE ROCK — First-time drunk driving offenders should be required to have a portable breath-test device attached to their car that only allows operation of the vehicle if the driver is sober, the Arkansas Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said Monday.
The offenders should also bear the expense, the group said at a Capitol news conference in support of House Bill 1640.
The bill by Rep. Eddie Hawkins, D-Vilonia, would require use of the “interlock” devices, required of repeat offenders under current law, after the first offense. One such device by Smart Start Inc. of Irving, Texas, has a $34 installation fee and a lease fee of $2.10 per day. The costs would be borne by the offender under Hawkins bill.
The bill has been assigned to the House Judiciary Committee.
An interlock device, which looks like a large hands-free telephone, is a breathalyzer connected by a wire to the cars ignition. The offender must pass the breathalyzer test by a safe margin — about one-fourth the legal blood alcohol limit of 0.08 — to be able to start the vehicle.
The latest versions of the devices requires the offender to hum a note while blowing into the mouthpiece — “learned behavior” meant to discourage the offender from using friends or passers-by to take the test for them.
The devices also include randomly timed tests while the vehicle is running to ensure the driver remains sober. Drivers have six minutes after the alarm sounds for a random test to pull over and take the test, a Smart Start spokeswoman said. Repeated failure to take random tests will shut down the vehicle and require a trip to the offenders probation officer to get the car going again.
Evidence shows a first-time offender drives drunk many times before being caught, state MADD director Teresa Belew said. One 1997 study by Estat, Inc. of Rockville, Md., commissioned by the federal governments National Highway Safety Administration estimated that many first-time DWI convicts drove drunk 87 times or more before being caught.
