Testimony
of
Danielle E. Roeber
Deputy Director, Office of Safety Recommendations and Advocacy
National Transportation Safety Board
before the Committee on Judiciary
Maryland House of Representatives
on Impaired Driving Legislation
House Bills 299, 301 and 307
Annapolis, Maryland
February 18, 2009
Good afternoon Chairman Vallario and members of the Committee on Judiciary. It is my pleasure to be here in Annapolis and talk about the National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendations for addressing impaired driving.
The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress to investigate transportation accidents, determine their probable cause, and make safety recommendations to prevent their recurrence. The recommendations that arise from our investigations and safety studies are our most important product. The Safety Board cannot mandate implementation of these recommendations. However, in our almost 42-year history, organizations and government bodies have adopted more than 80 percent of our recommendations.
The Alcohol-Highway Safety Problem
The Safety Board has recognized for many years that motor vehicle crashes are responsible for more deaths than crashes in all other transportation modes combined. More than 90 percent of all transportation related deaths each year result from highway crashes. Each year, about 40 percent of highway deaths nationwide and in Maryland are alcohol-related. Alcohol-related fatalities decreased from 17,602 in 2006 to 17,063 in 2007, however, the number of alcohol-related fatalities remains substantially higher than in 1999, when fewer than 16,000 people died in alcohol-related crashes.
The emotional toll on families is staggering, but impaired driving also has a financial impact. According to calculations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the lifetime cost to society for each fatality is over $977,000; alcohol-related crashes cost society billions of dollars. While the affected individual covers some of these costs, overall, NHTSA estimates that those not directly involved in crashes pay for nearly three-quarters of all crash costs, primarily through insurance premiums, taxes, and travel delay. Clearly, much needs to be done to reduce this ongoing tragedy.
The Hard Core Drinking Driver
The Safety Board is particularly concerned with hard core drinking drivers, who are involved in about 54 percent of alcohol-related fatalities. The Board defines hard core drinking drivers as individuals who drive with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.15 percent or greater, or who are arrested for driving while intoxicated within 10 years of a prior driving while impaired (DWI) arrest. From 1983 through 2007, more than 220,000 people died in crashes involving hard core drinking drivers nationwide. Most experts agree that impaired drivers persist in their behavior because these drivers believe that they will not be caught and/or convicted. That perception is based on reality. NHTSA estimates that an individual makes 772 drinking driving (any alcohol in the system) trips and 88 impaired driving trips before being arrested.
In 1984, the Safety Board completed a safety study that included recommendations to reduce the problem of repeat DWI offenders. Since those recommendations were issued, all States have made efforts to address the alcohol-related highway safety problem, making considerable progress in detecting, arresting, and adjudicating drinking drivers. However, the measures taken and the degree of implementation of the Safety Board’s 1984 recommendations by States and localities have not been uniform, and alcohol-related crashes continue to claim thousands of lives.
In light of the thousands of deaths still resulting from these crashes, the Safety Board focused on hard core drinking drivers in 2000. In that report, the Board examined a variety of countermeasures used by the States to identify which of these actions have been effective, and recommended a model program (attached) to reduce hard core drinking driving. The problem of hard core drinking drivers is complex; no single countermeasure by itself appears to reduce recidivism and crashes sufficiently. We need a comprehensive system of prevention, apprehension, sanction, and treatment to reduce the crashes, injuries, and fatalities caused by these drivers.
Today, I want to discuss several key issues pertaining to impaired driving: (1) the importance of BAC testing, (2) diversion and appropriate look-back periods for DWI offenders, and (3) loopholes in underage drinking laws.
BAC Testing (HB 307)
Every year, States make substantial commitments of financial and human resources to implement DWI countermeasures and prevent alcohol-related crashes. To appropriately allocate resources for, and to evaluate the effectiveness of, DWI laws and programs, each State needs to know both the level of, and the annual changes in, alcohol involvement in highway crashes. Complete and accurate information is essential. The Safety Board recognized the value of testing drivers involved in fatal crashes 25 years ago, when it recommended that Maryland and the other States require alcohol testing of all drivers involved in fatal highway crashes.
In 1982, the nation conducted BAC tests for only about 41 percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes. In 2007, the national proportion of drivers involved in fatal crashes who were tested was just under 49 percent, a rate that has remained roughly the same since 1999. And test results were obtained for only 42.7 percent of drivers involved in fatal crashes. Maryland’s testing program has had similarly disappointing results, testing only 42 percent of drivers in 1982. While Maryland’s testing rate has been as high as 46 percent, in 1998 and 2005, it has declined back to 42 percent as of 2007. Because more than half the population of drivers involved in fatal crashes are not tested, it is probable that more people are killed in alcohol-related crashes than estimated. The scope of the problem may well be larger than we think.
Repeat offenders, those familiar with the system, whether previously convicted or diverted, are more likely to refuse a test than first offenders. These offenders know that convictions are harder to obtain without a BAC test result, and the penalties for test refusal are not sufficiently severe for such offenders to volunteer a breath test. Other common reasons for failing to test drivers include lack of expertise, personal reluctance of those in the “testing system” (such as police officers and physicians), and lack of resources. The lack of a valid test result robs the State of a valuable piece of information in identifying those most in need of a significant intervention and substantially weakens the system for preventing alcohol-related fatalities.
House Bill 307 demonstrates the legislature’s commitment to obtaining accurate and reliable data, which will encourage law enforcement programs to devote resources to this issue. The Safety Board supports this legislation.
The Safety Board defines repeat offenders as individuals who are arrested for a DWI offense within 10 years of a prior DWI arrest. The Board recommends a longer look-back period because the chance of arresting DWI offenders is so small, one arrest for every 88 trips driving at an illegal BAC level. The Board specifies arrest, not just conviction, because DWI offenders are not always convicted of DWI violations. Their charges may be reduced to a lesser, non-alcohol-related offense, erased, or not used for enhancement after the driver has participated in a diversion program.
A diversion system eases the judicial caseload by offering incentives for a guilty plea. As noted above, however, an impaired driver has likely driven impaired on many occasions before being arrested once for DWI, let alone arrested twice. Not only can that first arrest and guilty plea not be used for penalty enhancement after diversion, often times the courts may not have any information about the prior offense when the offender is arrested again. Using diversion and erasing an offender’s record after successful completion makes it that much harder to identify hard core drinking drivers. Moreover, research indicates that diverted offenders recidivate faster than offenders receiving conviction and traditional sanctions. Research in Maryland has also shown that offenders receive multiple diversions despite legislated limits on its use.
Through application of plea-bargaining and diversion programs, a subsequent DWI conviction may not place an individual in the repeat offender category. Yet, the American Psychological Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) states that even one DWI offense is indicative of a substance problem. A high-BAC or repeat DWI arrest, therefore, supports the conclusion that the individual has an alcohol abuse problem and will continue to engage in dangerous driving practices unless significant countermeasures are imposed. Given the low likelihood of arrest and the need for long-term measures to change the behavior of hard core drinking drivers, the Safety Board recommends that record-retention and look-back periods last at least 10 years. Currently, 26 States and the District of Columbia have a 10-year or longer look-back period, but Maryland is not one of these States.
The Safety Board recommends that Maryland eliminate its diversion program, probation before judgment (PBJ), and extend its look-back period to 10 years for all DWI offenses. However, House Bill 301 is at least a step in the right direction because it makes the look-back period for PBJ 10 years.
Underage Drinking – Comprehensive Age 21 Laws (HB 299)
The Safety Board has long recognized the need for laws that prevent alcohol consumption by people under age 21. These are already high-risk drivers because they lack experience and maturity; we should do whatever we can to keep alcohol out of the mix. Teenage drivers with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.10 percent are far more likely to be killed in single vehicle crashes than sober drivers or older drivers with similar BAC levels.
When the Safety Board first investigated this issue in the early 1980s, drivers under age 21 were disproportionately involved in alcohol-related crashes. An overwhelmingly high percentage of fatally injured teen drivers had alcohol in their system. In 1982, more than 5,300 (or 20 percent) of alcohol-related fatalities involved a teen driver with a positive blood alcohol concentration (or BAC). That year, the Board recommended that States raise the minimum legal age for drinking or purchasing alcohol to 21-years-old.
The impact of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 achieved what we had hoped and expected it to achieve, a decrease in the percentage of fatally injured teen drivers legally impaired by alcohol. However, the percentage started to increase again in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Safety Board revisited the issue in 1993 and determined that a law prohibiting only the sale of alcohol to minors was not sufficient. The Board recommended ways in which States could close loopholes and strengthen enforcement of this life-saving legislation. It is these loopholes that House Bill 299 addresses.
It is not enough to prohibit the sale of alcohol to minors. To combat the underage drinking and driving problem, States also need to prohibit purchase, attempt to purchase, possession, and consumption. NHTSA estimates that since 1975, Age 21 laws have prevented more than 25,000 traffic deaths. And the sanctions for violating these provisions must be meaningful. Taking the driver’s license is not only the single, greatest sanction a teen driver can experience; it also helps keep potentially impaired drivers off the road. House Bill 299 does not address all the remaining loopholes in Maryland’s Age 21 laws; Maryland still does not prohibit purchase or attempt to purchase. This legislation, however, strengthens a very weak program, and the Safety Board encourages its adoption.
Conclusion
The General Assembly recognized that Maryland’s DWI countermeasure system needs an overhaul. Convening the Task Force to Combat Driving Under the Influence of Drugs and Alcohol was an excellent step at identifying problem areas. But it’s time to put the Task Force recommendations into action! On behalf of the Safety Board, I encourage you to pass this legislation and make Maryland’s roads safer.
Thank you again for allowing the Safety Board to testify about this important problem. I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
HARD CORE DRINKING DRIVER MODEL PROGRAM
“Actions to Reduce Fatalities, Injuries, and Crashes Involving the Hard Core Drinking Driver,” June, 2000
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