I will admit that I am a two time DUI offender. I am lucky that I did not seriously injure or kill anyone during my offenses. After my second one I wised up and gave up drinking. Now that I am a husband and father I also want to make sure my family is safe on the roads. How do we educate people that they should not drink and drive in the first place? How do we keep them off the roads after they prove that they will not learn the lesson. There are many good ideas, but unfortunately someone will come along and say we are infringing on someone else's rights. What do you think the right answer is?
3,504 in SW Ohio Busted for DUI 5 or more times
Ohio's laws did not keep Paul R. Daugherty off the road despite at least seven drunken-driving convictions.
Now, a 39-year-old mother of four is dead, allegedly run over by Daugherty, who was accused of being drunk, this week in Clermont County.
Her death comes as state legislators push for new ways to toughen laws against the hundreds of thousands of drivers such as Daugherty with multiple drunken-driving convictions.
An Enquirer analysis of state data shows that more than 3,500 drivers have been convicted of drunken driving in Southwest Ohio five or more times. Another 86 have 10 or more convictions.
Almost half of the drivers arrested for drunken driving in Clermont County last year had been arrested on the same charge before.
Clearly, current laws aren't keeping drunken drivers off Ohio roads, said state Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township.
Among the solutions proposed in Columbus are:
Requiring drunken drivers to install alcohol-sensing devices in their cars after one conviction. Such an ignition lock could have kept Daugherty from allegedly backing over Melissa Robbers early Monday outside an Amelia bar.
Use of the ignition device is optional in Ohio, left up to judges after three or more drunken-driving offenses.
Tougher penalties: Anyone with two or more convictions in six years would have to take a blood-alcohol test if stopped by police.
Beth Vanderkooi, spokeswoman for Sen. Tim Grendell, R-Chesterland, sponsor of Senate Bill 17, said that if someone refuses a breath test on a third offense, police would have the legal authority to take the driver to the hospital to draw blood to test for alcohol content. It's a requirement in his bill, which she likened to being required to give a fingerprint once under arrest.
Jeffrey Meadows, a Butler County defense lawyer who specializes in DUI cases, said it's reasonable to draw blood when police get a search warrant. "Without that, I think it's frightening that the police can probably stand on your arms while someone else draws the blood. That's the frightening part."
Publicizing the names: An amendment by Sen. Patricia Clancy, R-Colerain Township, would require the state to post on the Internet a list of Ohioans with five or more DUI convictions. Daugherty had five prior DUIs, so his drunken-driving history would have been a public record. The state Senate is expected to vote this month.
Right now, first-time DUI offenders face a six-month license suspension, minimum $150 fine and three days in jail - which often is waived if the driver seeks treatment for alcoholism. The most that a third-time offender faces is 30 days in jail and one-year license suspension, but the exact sentence and fines are largely left up to judges.
Gov. Ted Strickland's administration is eager to toughen the laws, though the administration hasn't taken positions on any specific bills.
'SHOULDN'T HAVE A LICENSE'
An Enquirer analysis of state DUI records showed that almost 36,000 drivers have five or more drunken-driving convictions in Ohio, including more than 3,500 in Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties, according to the state Department of Public Safety, based on records dating 1973.
"Somebody who has five DUIs, as far as I'm concerned, shouldn't even have a driver's license," Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones said.
Past legislation, including requiring repeat offenders to drive with a yellow license plate, have not succeeded in getting drunks off the road, said Andrea Rehkamp of Oxford, whose 14-year-old son, Kenneth Watson, was killed by a drunken driver in 1981.
Rehkamp is director of the Southwest Ohio chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In many cases, judges do not order their use, or offenders borrow someone else's car, according to MADD.
Doug Scoles, executive director of Ohio Mothers Against Drunk Driving, wants ignition locks for anyone convicted of DUI, "regardless of whether they are a repeat offender or not. First-time offenders, anybody.''
Scoles said such devices cost the driver about $79 a month, and some states and manufacturers have set up special funds for drivers who can't afford it.
Seitz said he modeled his bill requiring ignition locks after one passed in New Mexico in 2005.
But the American Beverage Institute - a Washington, D.C., association representing restaurants - thinks that requiring ignition-locking devices for first-time offenders is excessive enforcement.
"We believe people should be able to drink moderately and responsibly before driving home," said Sarah Longwell, an institute spokeswoman.
The institute favors increasing penalties for repeat offenders - including use of the ignition lock - and use of roving police patrols.
One study by scientists with the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation found that the devices cut repeat offenses in half, but traffic fatalities blamed on alcohol have not changed.
'REALLY BAD CHOICES'
Bill Sandlin, 72, of Hamilton, hoped to spend his retirement fishing and golfing with his brother, Robert.
But Robert, 70, and his 16-year-old granddaughter, Missy Boling, were killed by a drunken driver in 1999 - a driver with a prior DUI conviction.
"I was planning on retiring so that we could do all the things brothers do," Sandlin said. "I think I played golf once since then."
Sandlin said he's forgiven the killer, Joseph H. Hoops, 44, of Hanover Township - who completes his eight-year prison sentence for aggravated vehicular homicide this year - but he will never forget the damage left by Hoops' van, reportedly traveling 90 mph when it went airborne and hit Robert Sandlin's car head-on.
"It was devastating to the whole family," Sandlin said. "Here's the thing about Hoops. He didn't go out that morning and say, 'Well, at 5 o'clock today, I'm gonna go kill a grandfather and his cheerleader granddaughter.' He made really bad choices. Really bad. ... He not only destroyed his own life, and really messed his family up, but he destroyed an unlimited amount of people who were family and friends to my brother."
Hoops declined an interview request.
Sandlin and other DUI victims say they're pleased that Ohio legislators want tougher laws on repeat offenders.
Sandlin still wonders why jail sentences vary from county to county and state to state. He'd like to see all first-time offenders locked up, or at least placed in mandatory alcohol-rehabilitation programs.
"Alcoholism is the only disease that's self-inflicted," he said. "I think we need to stop excusing people who are abusing alcohol to the extent that they begin hurting and killing other people."
MOTHER-IN-LAW MOURNS
No county in Ohio last year had a higher percentage of repeat DUIs than Adams, in southern Ohio. State data show that 57 percent of those convicted of drunken driving there last year had been convicted previously.
One of Adams County's convicted drunken drivers is Patricia Ann Edwards, 31, of West Union. She's serving 13 years at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, Marysville, for the deaths of her two daughters in an accident Dec. 10, 2005.
Edwards, who had a prior DUI conviction, declined an interview request.
Her sport utility vehicle crossed the center line on Ohio 125 near West Union and collided with a van. Her daughters, Morgan Daulton, 10, and Skylar Edwards, 6, were thrown from the SUV and died.
"It's something you never get over," Morgan's grandmother, Cheryl Daulton of Blue Creek, said. "Her and Skylar would get off the bus and come straight to the office and see me every day, and they would always say, 'I love you.' "
Daulton said newly proposed restrictions on repeat offenders, and an ignition-locking device, might have kept Edwards off the road. "It was a problem we knew she had.
"We definitely need more changes to the law," Daulton said. "Anything we can do to get a drunk driver off the road is worth (it) .... There's just not enough done to a drunk driver once they are stopped the first time. They can go on and on and do this again and just get a slap on the wrist."
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