December 8, 2003

New drunk driving media campaign will support law enforcement efforts

Armed with a new advertising campaign and a tough, new drunk driving law, more than 500 Michigan law enforcement agencies will take part in a statewide, coordinated drunk-driving crackdown that runs from Dec. 19 through Jan. 4, 2004.

This is the first statewide You Drink & Drive. You Lose. mobilization under the new and tougher drunk driving law that took effect Sept. 30. The new law lowers the limit at which a motorist is considered a drunk driver.

"These new radio and broadcast ads reinforce the fact that Michigan police officers are trained to spot drunk drivers," said Michael L. Prince, Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) division director. "Special training and experience mean there’s no ‘outsmarting’ an officer if a person is driving drunk."

Studies show that motorists are more likely to drive sober when patrols are combined with highly visible public awareness efforts, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). OHSP is coordinating the mobilization, providing federal traffic safety funds to boost patrols in selected areas and funding paid advertising to ensure widespread awareness of the program. In the current fiscal year, OHSP will provide nearly $2 million in federal money to law enforcement agencies for overtime patrols and another $1.5 million in paid advertising during mobilization periods.

Michigan was the 44^th state to adopt a .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) standard for drunk driving offenses. Prior to the change in law, .08 BAC was considered impaired driving in Michigan. NHTSA estimates the country would save 400-600 lives each year if all states adopted .08 laws.

According to the NHTSA, laboratory and on-road research shows that the vast majority of drivers are significantly impaired at .08 with regard to critical driving tasks such as braking, steering, lane changing, judgment and divided attention. Additionally, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, driving skills can be affected at BAC levels as low as .02 (www.niaaa.nih.gov). Alcohol also affects everyone differently (by age, gender, physical condition, amount of food consumed, etc.), different drinks may contain different amounts of alcohol, and impairment can actually begin with the first drink (www.health.org/nongovpubs).

With the new drunk driving law, those convicted for a first drunk driving offense now face:

In addition, convicted drunk drivers will be subject to a new $1,000 fee for two consecutive years, for a total of $2,000 in additional costs. Anyone who refuses a breath test the first time is given an automatic one-year driver’s license suspension.

Twenty counties are receiving federal traffic safety funding for overtime patrols for the holiday mobilization, including: Bay, Berrien, Calhoun, Delta, Ingham, Genesee, Grand Traverse, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Livingston, Macomb, Monroe, Muskegon, Oakland, Ottawa, Saginaw, St. Clair, Washtenaw and Wayne counties. For a complete listing of departments participating in the mobilization, visit OHSP’s website at www.michigan.gov/ohsp.

In spite of the progress that has been made to reduce drunk driving, nearly 35 percent of all traffic fatalities in Michigan still involve alcohol and/or drugs. Last year, 422 people died and 9,414 were injured in alcohol-related crashes on Michigan roadways. Nearly 58,000 people were arrested for alcohol-related driving offenses in 2002, and during the last national drunk-driving crackdown in December 2002, Michigan law enforcement officers arrested more than 2,700 motorists for alcohol-related offenses.