Kansas Debates Costs of Getting Drunk Drivers Off Roads

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Kansas lawmakers heard testimony on a bill recently that was inspired by the deaths of a mother and her 4-year-old daughter in an accident police believe involved a driver with multiple drunk driving convictions.

Kansas Rep. Aaron Jack, R-Andover, has introduced one of the toughest bills ever proposed in Kansas to punish impaired drivers.”We have simply got to get these people off our roads,” Jack said.

But some legislators, and treatment expert Harold Casey of Wichita, predict there might soon be many more drunken drivers on the road even if legislators toughen penalties. The reason: state budget cuts in the treatment programs. “What you’re going to see is more criminality, more people on the road, and jails and prisons more crowded because the judicial system won’t have as many treatment programs to send them to,” said Casey, president of the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas.

Unfortunately, Casey is right, said state Sen. Jean Schodorf, R-Wichita. Schodorf has helped Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, shape a new Senate DUI bill, separate from Jack’s. “The corrections department is going to take a huge hit with program closures, and that brings up the question of safety with all those people back on the street,” Schodorf said. “So that raises the tough question for us in the Legislature: Do you try to improve the economy first? Or do you try to solve a problem like drunk driving, and get the statutes in place?”

Jack’s bill would create a new crime in Kansas: aggravated drunken driving. The bill includes higher penalties for DUI if aggravating factors are present: if drivers are found to be drunk at a blood alcohol level of .24, if they’re driving with suspended or revoked licenses, or if they have one or more passengers younger than 18.

Jack also wants to make it easier to convict people even if they refuse to take a breath or blood alcohol test.

Jack’s bill already has one critic: Sen. Owens. “I think his (Jack’s) bill is premature,” Owens said. Owens said there’s no point in creating a new crime, “aggravated DUI,” if the law undergoes further revisions down the road.