jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com
BY JOHN BURNETT | STEPHENS MEDIA
HILO — The Hawaii chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is calling the first year of the state’s ignition interlock law a success.
The statute, which took effect on Jan. 1, 2011, allows first-time DUI offenders to drive legally after installing a device that prevents their cars from starting if the driver’s blood-alcohol content is 0.02 percent or higher, one-quarter of the state’s DUI threshold.
Of the 1,043 ignition interlocks installed statewide in 2010, 167 were on the Big Island, according to the state Department of Transportation. In Hilo, 65 of the devices were stalled, while 102 were installed in Kona.
Arkie Koehl, MADD’s volunteer chairman, said he’s “absolutely delighted and overwhelmed.”
“We didn’t expect anything like this,” Koehl said on Monday. “The interlock guru on the mainland, a guy named Dick Roth in New Mexico, predicted we’d be lucky if we got about 100. He said Hawaii has grown faster (in interlock installations) in the first year of the law than any other state in the country.”
Statewide, there were 4,237 aborted start attempts last year in cars with interlocks installed. About 16 percent of the starts prevented were on the Big Island, with 420 in Kona and 266 in Hilo.
There were 1,435 DUI arrests on the Big Island last year compared with 1,513 in 2010, a decrease of 4.9 percent. It’s not known how many drivers that figure represents, as some are arrested more than once during a year. It’s also unclear how many of those arrested are eligible for interlock installation.
Repeat offenders are not eligible to have the interlock installed on their vehicles, because the law still requires revocation of their vehicle registration and impoundment of their license plates.
“They can install it, but not in a vehicle registered to them, so it’s a rather awkward matter,” said Doug Birge, review officer for the state’s Administrative Drivers License Revocation Office. “In other words, the way the law is written, it’s possible for them to install it, say, in a vehicle (registered to someone else) if the owner gives them permission to install it in the vehicle.”
Legislation has been introduced this session to close that loophole.
“As part of the same bill, there’s an effort to repeal lifetime revocations,” Koehl said. He expects it to pass this year, despite expected resistance from law enforcement officials.
He’s also looking to introduce a bill that would require immediate immobilization of a vehicle involved in a traffic collision or stop when police find the driver’s license was suspended or revoked for DUI. The current law calls for a mandatory three-day jail term.
“There are still a lot of drunk drivers who are driving illegally without a license and we want to increase the penalty for that,” Koehl said. “There won’t be many cases of this, but we’re hoping it will be a deterrent more meaningful than getting locked up for three days.”
“Basically, the people who are getting the interlock are more law-abiding citizens than the people who are not getting it, as a general rule,” he continued. “It’s the people who aren’t getting it who are the more dangerous drivers … and what we want to do is to increase the penalty for driving without a license that was revoked for DUI.”
Added police Sgt. Christopher Gali, head of the Traffic Enforcement Unit in Hilo: “I haven’t had any contact with any people who have had interlock installed as of yet.”
In addition to DUI arrests, major accidents were down 3.6 percent in Hawaii County in 2011, to 1,400, compared to 1,451 the previous year. Official traffic fatalities were also lower, from 27 in 2010 to 22 last year, a decrease of 28.5 percent.
“The interlock, enforcement and education about drinking and driving, all three of those components, hopefully, are playing a role in that,” Gali said. Gali hopes the decrease is permanent, but said it’s too soon to tell.
Koehl cautioned that there are no studies of the effect of interlock laws on traffic deaths.
“There’s no national research or anything to directly correlate the two things, at this point,” he said. “And … the numbers, even statewide but certainly countywide, are just too small to show a trend from year to year.”
jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com