Ignition-device DUI prevention triples

Officials aren't sure why the numbers increased.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Pennsylvania drivers were prevented from starting their cars 33,754 times last year by alcohol-triggered ignition shut-off systems, devices that are being used more aggressively nationwide than in past years.
Officials weren't sure why the numbers, taken from October 2002 through September 2003 and released in January, were triple the previous year's, when the devices stopped drivers 10,142 times. Last year, 2,621 people had interlock systems; the year before it was 1,185.
"Maybe that can help drive home that drinking and driving is a problem," said Anthony Tassoni, the ignition interlock director for the Pennsylvania DUI Association, which administers the program for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. "That's how many people tried to drive knowing there was a device on there to stop them."
The devices, installed in the cars of repeat DUI offenders, force drivers to blow into a tube so their blood-alcohol content can be measured.
Limit in Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, if the driver's BAC is above .025 percent the car won't start. The legal limit in most states is .08 percent.
Highway safety organizations are pushing for the devices, used in 42 states and Washington, D.C., to be used even more aggressively as a way to decrease the thousands of yearly traffic deaths blamed on alcohol.
In New Mexico, the House judiciary chairman Rep. W. Ken Martinez is backing a bill introduced last week that would require all new and used vehicles sold in the state to have the ignition interlock system by 2009. Gov. Bill Richardson called the bill "an innovative concept" that he'd seriously consider.
Starting today in Florida, up to 20,000 repeat DUI drivers, in a law retroactive to July 2002, will be required to get the ignition interlocks installed.
Beginning today in Pennsylvania, all repeat DUI drivers also will be forced to have the devices installed. Previously drivers could have opted for a longer suspension to avoid getting the interlock system.
More than 17,400 people were killed in crashes involving alcohol in the United States in 2002, the latest data available. That's 41 percent of the 42,815 people killed in all traffic crashes, said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Arrests each year
There are about 1.5 million DUI arrests a year, but only about 80,000 interlock devices in cars nationwide, said Barry Sweedler, a past president of the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs & amp; Traffic Safety.
Studies comparing convicted DUI drivers with and without the interlock devices in their cars have found that those with the systems were between 40 percent and 85 percent less likely to be re-arrested for drunken driving.
But other studies show that once the devices are removed, the arrest rates mostly return to the levels of former DUI drivers that didn't have the devices, meaning there is little permanent behavioral modification, Sweedler said.
"My whole view is make it ... that you have to prove that you really don't need [the device] anymore," Sweedler said. "Now it's just based on time. You do your time and you're free and clear. There's no evaluation to see if it should come off. The system could be much more effective."
Kenneth Beck, who published a study in the American Journal of Public Health on re-arrest rates for DUI drivers with interlock systems, said the devices work well for most drivers but are not foolproof. Convicted DUI drivers can simply drive another car, for instance.
"What we're seeing is a number of real recalcitrant drunk drivers driving without a license at all," Beck said. "With those kinds of people ignition interlocks have no chance of being effective."