Protocols, paperwork, grants all play part on police crack down on impaired drivers

KAILUA-KONA — Every week the Hawaii Police Department announces how many arrests they make on charges of driving under the influence of an intoxicant and West Hawaii Today prints the names of those arrested.

But behind those busts are hours of police work — much of it spent on paperwork.

The actual arrest and interaction with the suspect takes an experienced officer about an hour, said Officer Bruce Parayno, who is assigned to the Kona Patrol section. An inexperienced officer might need 90 minutes.

But then the paperwork comes in.

“It could take an entire shift,” Parayno said.

And there is no doubt for officers that the problem demands attention.

“Drunken driving kills people. It’s a fact,” said Capt. Randal Ishii of the Kona District.

Officers around Kona have been busy. So far this year there have been 315 arrests in the Kona District, well ahead of South Hilo’s 201 and Puna’s 202.

That’s on pace to match or even surpass the roughly 400 arrests made in Kona the last two years.

So far this year, there have been 18 fatal crashes on Hawaii Island’s public ways, resulting in 21 deaths, compared with 12 fatal crashes, resulting in 15 fatalities during the same period last year. Fatal crashes are up 50 percent. The total number of fatalities that involve alcohol, however, won’t be tabulated until the annual report at the end of the year.

But in 2012, for example, there were 16 fatalities related to drunken driving on public ways on the Big Island, according to police records.

With those small numbers it’s hard to draw much of a trend, Ishii said, as the number of DUIs seems to be comparable with other years.

But that doesn’t change their goal.

“Even one is way too many. That is someone’s daughter, someone’s son, someone’s loved one,” Ishii said.

“(The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)’s research estimated that 7,082 deaths would have been prevented in 2010 if all drivers with BACs of 0.08 percent or higher were kept off the roads,” the group wrote.

One of the tools seeking to eliminate drunken drivers is the administrative driver’s license revocation, commonly abbreviated at ADLRO.

This procedure allows the state to take away a license without a conviction. It’s been touted as causing a reduction in drunken driving deaths across the country.

But much of the work lands on the officer’s shoulders.

Before the institution of the ADLRO, Ishii said officers would regularly make two arrests a night. That rate is no longer possible with the current requirements, he said, which require many for steps to fulfill.

One of the major parts is explaining the options and their potential consequences to the suspected impaired driver, said Parayno, which can be complicated based on how intoxicated a person is.

Under the ADLRO, the driver has to be advised that refusing to take a test can result in losing their license. Since there are several options on how to do this, including a breath test or blood test, the driver has options.

Blood draws, which can be required after an accident, require a trip to Kona Community Hospital.

Although some jurisdictions across the country have contracts or qualified people on staff to make the draw, the County of Hawaii does not.

So, in addition to having to take the suspect to the hospital, the officer still has to do police work. In this case, that includes a four-page section of the packet that the officer has to fill out.

After that the person is normally released, pending investigation, as police send the blood to the lab.

Additionally, officers use DUI checkpoints.

Those are largely funded by grants, and are contingent on that money coming in, Ishii said. Lately they’ve been running two a weekend, which may account for the increase in arrests.