Baby, You Can't Drive Your Car

Baby, You Can't Drive Your Car
A judge's favorite punishment for drunken drivers—ignition-interlock.
By LaDoris Cordell
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009, at 12:13 PM ET

Ignition-interlock-device demonstration

Driving home from work after a long day at the courthouse, I was hit by a drunken driver. He destroyed my car and left me with bruises, a hairline fracture of the spine, and terrified about the thought of getting back on the road again. This man who wreaked havoc in my life received a fine, kept his driver's license, and was sentenced to serve a few weekends in jail. This was in November 1984.

When I returned to my job as a California trial judge eight weeks later, I had a far different perspective on the crime of drunken driving. While the system that we had in place to deal with drunken drivers might have been efficient, with cases and punishments quickly dispatched, it did nothing to make our roads safer.

May 28, 1987, I became the first judge in the state of California to order convicted drunken drivers to install ignition-interlock devices in their cars. The device is designed to stop people who have been drinking alcohol from starting their cars by requiring them first to blow into it. If there is alcohol on the driver's breath, the device will not allow the ignition system to operate.

Ordering convicted drunken drivers to install these devices seems to me a matter of common sense and basic safety. But in fact, the matter proved far more complicated. The California courts may soon require judges to follow my lead on ignition-interlock sentencing. But it has taken more than 20 years and new legislation, which is on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk awaiting his signature. Why has it taken so long? And why do we need a law mandating such an obvious safety measure when judges could put it into effect themselves?

My own history suggests one unsettling answer. Early on, my fellow judges did not support my ignition-interlock sentences. Judges, no less than the rest of us, resist change. My colleagues who were assigned to calendars filled with drunken driving charges wanted to dispose of these cases quickly and quietly, obtaining guilty pleas as early in the process as possible. Completing the additional paperwork that went with ignition-interlock devices did not sit well with them.

Then came the totally unexpected opposition from the local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In their view, the ignition-interlock devices weren't punitive enough; they preferred more jail time for drunken drivers. Incarceration, however, is a temporary remedy. As the recidivism numbers clearly demonstrate, convicted drunken drivers return to the roads in numbers too great to ignore.

And finally, in my own court, as I continued to order the installation of ignition-interlock systems, I started to worry about fairness, since the devices are expensive. (At the time, the installation fee was $150 and the lease fee was $50 per month; prices have gone up a bit.) Convicted drunken drivers are often low-income. I realized that by ordering them to use the devices, I was effectively raising their fines, so I lowered those to offset the fees. That proved unacceptable to Santa Clara County's district attorney's office, which took the position that judges could not lawfully reduce drunken-driving fines. The DA's office took me to court and obtained an order directing me to stop. When I was thereafter rotated to another assignment, no judges were willing to order the devices for convicted drunken drivers. In January 1988, seven months after it started, my ignition-interlock sentencing program came to an end.

Today, almost all 50 states have laws permitting the imposition of ignition-interlock devices as sentencing alternatives for drunken drivers. The devices have a proven track record as an effective deterrent. The American Journal of Preventive Medicine notes that five out of six studies found that interlocks reduced the rate of recidivism for DWI charges. Participants in the interlock programs were 15 percent to 69 percent less likely than other offenders to be rearrested for drunken driving.

And yet, as a recent New York Times op-ed noted, while the effectiveness of the devices is clear, judges often fail to order the installations, even when the law requires it. Anecdotally, you can take your pick of explanations: too much paperwork; too much court time to review the results of the breath printouts; opposition to any other sentencing options other than jail; ignorance of the fact that this is a sentencing alternative. In any case, just as convicted drunken drivers must be made to use the devices, judges must be made to order them. The well-documented carnage on our highways and the tremendous economic impact wreaked upon us by drunken drivers are far too great to leave to judicial whim.

In California, the bill on the governor's desk, which passed earlier this month, would require judges to order the installation of ignition-interlock devices in the vehicles of convicted first-time and repeat drunken drivers, as a pilot project in the counties of Los Angeles, Alameda, Sacramento, and Tulare. If Gov. Schwarzenegger signs the bill, the pilot program would start in July 2010 and become statewide law in 2016. This legislation is supported by a wide array of law enforcement agencies, including MADD, which has changed its stance on ignition-interlock sentencing.

Schwarzenegger should sign the bill. It will make our judges better. And it will make our streets safer. Finally.

You Can't Drive Your Car: A judge's favorite punishment for drunken drivers—ignition-interlock.

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LaDoris Cordell is a retired state court judge and former special counselor to the president of Stanford University.
Photograph of ignition-interlock-device demonstration by Toshifumi Kitamura/AFP/Getty Images.

COMMENTS

I am also a judge and because the law now requires me to order usage of an ignition interlock device, I do so. I did not do so before and here are the reasons why. 1) It is not geographically easily available. Many communities do not have an IID provider available and I think it inappropriate to force people to take their cars on ferries or by rail or several hundred miles by road to have one installed. 2) It is expensive. The costs and fees in my state are far higher than the ones you quoted, and I felt I simply enriched a service provider (bail bondsmen) who really does very little and does not and cannot immediately respond to a problem if any. 3) Planned drinkers very easily get around the IID. They start the car sober, drive to the bar and leave it running until they leave. This happens here all the time because people often leave their cars running in the winter so it would be unremarkable. Or they have other people blow into it, often their underage children. 4) In AK a person cannot re-obtain a license on the first offense without proof they are in treatment or for subsequent offenses proof that they have completed treatment and after a mandatory waiting period of 90 days to 7 years so the IID may be a bit overkill, especially in many of the communities I service where there is also no mass transit system. Felony DUI offenders receive an automatic lifetime ban on driving. 5) Statistics which have remained fairly constant over the past 20 years show that about 87% of first time DUI defendants are never arrested for the crime again. The majority of people are dismayed and deterred by their arrest. Why should I order a condition that is unnecessary in the great majority of cases? Interestingly, for subsequent DUI defendants that statistic is almost the exact opposite: almost 80 % of them will be rearrested for another DUI. This population and how to deal with it ought to receive more attention. 6) It's ineffective. I can order an IID on the person's car, but it they borrow or rent one or use their spouse's the condition is meaningless. They also don't need one for snowmachines, certain all terrain vehicles and other forms of motorized transport that are regularly used in AK so many motorized vehicles are not even covered. Lastly, in my opinion, the IID gives the community a false sense of security that somehow drunk driving will be reduced by the IID when there is no real indication that is true: people are going to overconsume and drive because they make honest mistakes, because they are addicts, because they are stupid, and because they are selfish and their own convenience is more important to them than the safety of others. So the IID is except in rare circumstances just another "feel good" tactic from my perspective. Obviously reasonable people can disagree about how to respond to any social ill and no two judges are likely to see sentencing goals exactly the same way, but these are some of my reasons that had nothing to do with fear of change.

-- Alaska1
(To reply, click here)

This is useful but I'm not quite sold.

[1] This provides an incentive for wider availability. Likewise, the person already was convicted of a serious crime that is a threat to the public. They are being allowed to drive here, a privilege to begin with if an important one, so why is it inappropriate for them to be inconvenienced? Convicted criminals (and their families) have repeated inconveniences, including travel.

[2] Wide use can probably reduce the cost (things we take for granted now once were too expensive) and I'm unsure how a bail bondsman is the 'service provider' benefiting here. If anything, the provider of the lock would seem to be the one profiting. Likewise, part of the 'cost' is avoiding injury and I reckon you can save money on trial and prison costs along the way.

[3] The technological limitations of the device is a major concern, but I would think there were ways around that including automatic shutoffs, video review, and ways to determine who blew on the device.

[4] How is a device that allows you to drive, just not drive DUI, "overkill" ... how is a 90 day period that big of a deal?

[5] This suggests it should be used on the second offense then. Likewise, where does that take you? Why punish the person at all?

[6] I reckon this could apply to any number of things. But, as to the rental, why not then disallow that? As for the specialized devices, is the drunk driving problem as dangerous in that respect? Driving drunk on a city street vs. on a snowmobile etc.

[7] The same can be said for any mechanism. Orders of protections, for instance, are of limited value, but I'm not sure that means they shouldn't exist. Why have seat belts, after all, since someone might just not use them.

I don't see this as a cure-all, but particularly if so many offenders are actually reasonable sorts who are not going to go out of their way to break the rules, I'm not convinced on a cost/benefit basis this is not valuable. Alaska and other areas also might have special concerns not present in let's say New York City or whatnot. For instance, not too many snowmobiles around here, availability probably isn't an issue, nor is the distance to obtain it.

-- Joe_JP


(Interesting article. Should the IIDs only be used on repeat offenders? Or is that locking the gate after the horse has escaped ? No method is foolproof, and creative minds will always find a way around built-in precautions. Should anybody who blows in the breathalyzer of another person, be videotaped, and prosecuted for aiding and abetting if the driver is caught DUI again? The program should pay for itself. Education is the key.) Your thoughts? Ideas?