Good afternoon Chairman Vallario and Judiciary committee members. It is my pleasure to be here in Annapolis and talk about the National Transportation Safety Board's recommendations for addressing hard core drinking drivers.

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent Federal agency charged by Congress to investigate transportation accidents, determine their probable cause, and made recommendations to prevent their recurrence. The recommendations that arise from our investigations and safety studies are our most important product. The Safety Board has neither regulatory authority nor grant funds. In our 33-year history, organizations and government bodies have adopted more than 80 percent of our recommendations.

The Safety Board has recognized for many years that traffic crashes are one of this nation's most serious transportation safety problems. More than 90 percent of all transportation related deaths each year result from highway crashes. Almost 40 percent of the highway deaths in Maryland are alcohol-related.

In 1988, the Safety Board investigated the worst alcohol-related highway collision in American history, the collision of a pick-up truck and a church activity bus in Carrollton, Kentucky. The crash killed 27 and injured 34 innocent people. The pick-up driver had been drinking and was traveling the wrong way on an Interstate. Ninety minutes after the crash, the pick-up driver's blood alcohol content (BAC) was 0.26 percent. This individual was a hard core drinking driver.

The Safety Board defines hard core drinking drivers as individuals who drive with a BAC of 0.15 percent or greater, or who are arrested for or convicted of driving while intoxicated within 10 years of a prior driving while impaired (DWI) conviction. From 1983 through 1998, at least 137,338 people died in crashes involving hard core drinking drivers.

The problem of hard core drinking drivers is complex. No single countermeasure appears to be sufficient to address hard core drinking drivers. These offenders require different approaches. We need a comprehensive system of prevention, apprehension, sanction, and treatment to reduce the crashes, injuries, and fatalities caused by these drivers. Most experts agree that impaired drivers persist in their behavior because these drivers believe that they will not be caught and/or convicted. That perception is based on reality. An intoxicated person can drive from New York to Los Angeles and halfway back without being arrested.
In 1984, the Safety Board completed a safety study which included recommendations to reduce the problem of repeat offenders. Since those recommendations were issued, efforts have been made by all states to address the alcohol-related highway safety problem, and considerable progress has been made in detecting, arresting, and adjudicating drinking drivers. However, the measures taken and the degree of implementation of the Safety Board's 1984 recommendations by states and localities have not been uniform, and alcohol-related crashes continue to claim too many lives.

In light of the thousands of deaths still resulting from these crashes, the Safety Board again focused its efforts on hard core drinking drivers in 2000. That study examined a variety of countermeasures to identify which of these actions have been effective in the specific states that have utilized them, and recommended a model program (attached) to reduce hard core drinking driving.

Today, I want to discuss four key issues pertaining to impaired driving. First, to make decisions, policy makers need accurate and reliable data. Second, drivers with a high BAC pose a much greater risk than other impaired drivers. Third, repeat offenders require different approaches than the average impaired driver. Fourth, no impaired driver should be released from custody until he or she is no longer impaired.

BAC Testing

Substantial commitments of financial and human resources are made annually in every state to implement or expand DWI countermeasures. Obtaining support, particularly at the local level, for DWI countermeasures is dependent upon demonstrating that DWI violations are a serious local problem. Complete and accurate information on the involvement of alcohol in fatal highway crashes is essential for acquiring such support. To allocate resources for, and to evaluate the effectiveness of, DWI laws and programs, each State must know both the level of, and the annual changes in, alcohol involvement in highway crashes. Such knowledge also is a critical prerequisite to the planning and implementation of effective countermeasures. The Safety Board recognized the value of testing drivers involved in fatal crashes nearly 17 years ago, when it recommended that Maryland and the other states require alcohol testing of all drivers involved in fatal highway crashes.

The national proportion of drivers involved in fatal crashes who are tested for alcohol has risen from 34 percent in 1982 to only 43 percent in 2000. Maryland actually saw a decrease in the testing of drivers, from 43 percent in 1982 to 41 percent in 2000. Therefore, it is entirely likely that more people are killed from alcohol-related crashes than estimated. The scope of the problem may well be larger than we all think.

Common reasons for failing to test drivers include lack of expertise, personal reluctance of those in the "testing system" (such as police officers and physicians), and lack of resources. House Bill 1233 demonstrates the legislature's commitment to obtaining accurate and reliable data, which will encourage law enforcement programs to devote resources to this issue. House Bill 1233 even goes one step further and requires testing in crashes that result in life threatening injuries.

Drivers with High Blood Alcohol Content

Drivers with a high BAC, 0.15 percent or greater, require strong intervention similar to that ordinarily prescribed for repeat offenders. Those who reach this high BAC level have consumed large amounts of alcohol, much more than is considered to be social or responsible drinking. High BAC offenders are also likely to be repeat offenders. Research has found that drivers with a high BAC are at a substantially greater risk of being involved in a fatal crash. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has estimated that the relative fatality risk for drivers in single-vehicle crashes with a high BAC is 385 times that of a zero-BAC driver.

One Pennsylvania accident investigated by the Safety Board illustrates the risks created by high BAC drivers. On November 25, 1999, about 1:20 a.m., a 1993 Pontiac Grand Am had been traveling for more than 5 miles in the wrong direction in Interstate 76 in Pennsylvania when it collided head-on with a 1993 Nissan Altima transporting the driver and four passengers. The impact caused the Altima to spin, strike a concrete barrier, and catch fire. One passenger was trapped in the Altima and died of burns, multiple injuries, and smoke inhalation. The three remaining passengers and the driver of the Altima sustained minor to serious injuries. The driver of the Pontiac was found to have a BAC of 0.24 percent.

At least 15 states have laws providing for an "extreme" or "aggravated" DWI offense. In these states, a first offender committing an aggravated alcohol offense can be subject to sanctions similar to those available for repeat offenders. House Bill 818 address high BAC drivers by imposing increased sanctions, and the Safety Board recommends that you adopt these increased sanctions for drivers with a BAC of 0.15 percent or greater.

Repeat Offenders

The Safety Board defines repeat offenders as individuals who are arrested or convicted of a driving-while-impaired (DWI) offense within 10 years of a prior DWI arrest or conviction. The Board includes arrested, as well as convicted, offenders because multiple arrests for DWI violations demonstrate dangerous behavior. DWI offenders are not always convicted of DWI violations; their charges may be reduced to a lesser, non-alcohol-related offense or erased after participating in a diversion program. Because plea-bargaining and diversion programs interfere with the State's retention of accurate records, a subsequent DWI conviction may not place an individual in the repeat offender category. Yet such behavior, (multiple DWI arrests), supports the conclusion that the individual has an alcohol abuse problem. Given the low likelihood of arrest and the need for long-term measures to change the behavior of hard core drinking drivers, record-retention and look-back periods of longer than 5 years are needed. Currently, 25 states have a 10 year look-back period, as recommended by the Safety Board.

Treatment - where an intake assessment, classification and assignment to appropriate treatment are performed - is effective for repeat offenders if used in conjunction with other sanctions. Repeat offenders have shown a propensity for abusing alcohol. They either cannot or will not avoid driving after drinking.

License sanctions are useful measures for preventing DWI violations. Hard core drinking drivers, however, will continue to drive while their licenses are suspended or revoked. In a recent survey, 65 percent of suspended drivers and 71 percent of revoked drivers in California admitted to driving during their disqualification. A Safety Board analysis of 1998 FARS data showed that, if involved in a fatal crash, drivers with suspended or revoked licenses and a prior DWI conviction are 4.43 times more likely to be drinking at the time of the crash than drivers with a valid license and no prior DWI conviction. One California study found that California drivers with suspended or revoked licenses have 3.7 times the fatal crash rate of the average driver, and a second study determined that the relative risk of a fatal crash is substantially higher than average among drivers suspended or revoked for drinking and driving offenses.

Thus, the Safety Board recommended the use of vehicle sanctions such as license plate impoundment, vehicle immobilization, vehicle impoundment, vehicle forfeiture, and ignition interlock. Vehicle sanctions substantially decrease the opportunity for hard core drinking drivers to operate vehicles illegally. In its 2000 safety study, the Safety Board reviewed numerous vehicle sanction programs and noted the following results:

• License plate actions reduce recidivism by 50 percent
• Vehicle immobilization reduces recidivism by 36 percent
• Vehicle impoundment reduces subsequent convictions by 18 to 34 percent and subsequent crashes by 25 to 34 percent
• Vehicle forfeiture reduces crashes by 14 percent and alcohol-related fatalities by 32 percent (preliminary data)
• Ignition interlocks are especially effective while they are on the vehicle and reduce recidivism by 62 to 75 percent

House Bill 4 mandates license suspensions for repeat offenders and extends the length of those suspensions to a year. It also requires the use of an ignition interlock system as a condition of license reinstatement in certain cases. House Bill 1061 also addresses repeat offenders and requires ignition interlock in certain cases. Both bills are an important step toward addressing the problems caused by repeat offender drinking drivers.

Holding and Release Policies

Holding and release policies for DWI offenders should reflect the nature of the driving impairment, especially for high BAC and repeat offenders. House Bill 47, also known as "John's Law" and prompted by a tragic crash in the summer of 2000, addresses this important, but often overlooked element of our system for dealing with impaired drivers. Just three hours after his arrest and release for drunk driving, a still-impaired driver killed Ensign John Elliott, a recent graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. This incident, and others investigated by the Safety Board, shows why it is critical that detention agencies adopt policies that do not permit the release of alcohol offenders until they are no longer impaired.

The Safety Board recommended that the States adopt improved detention and release policies in 1984. It recommended that states adopt policies that do not permit the release of alcohol offenders until the blood alcohol concentration has dropped below the lowest level of impairment specified in state law. That recommendation was made following a study on deficiencies in enforcement, judicial and treatment programs related to drunk drivers.

The Safety Board's recommendation grew out of an accident the Board investigated in which a 19-year-old driver was killed while riding a motorcycle, six hours after he had been arrested for DWI. The motorcycle skidded 60 feet, vaulted 28 feet, landed on its side, and then rolled 107 feet before it came to rest. The driver had a blood alcohol content of 0.16 percent following his initial arrest, but was released only 90 minutes after the alcohol test was conducted. The city jail in which the driver was held had a policy of holding persons arrested for alcohol-related offenses for 4 hours, or releasing them to a responsible adult.

While the Safety Board found that many detoxification centers at that time held individuals until their blood alcohol level dropped to zero, even this may not be enough. Sweden's National Road and Traffic Research Institute has reported that a person's ability to carry out complex driving maneuvers is reduced for at least 3 hours after the blood alcohol concentration reaches zero. Those with hangovers show a "marked inability to subjectively determine if they are fit to drive at all." The dizzy, queasy feeling often accompanying a hangover may diminish driving ability by as much as 20 percent, even when the blood alcohol concentration is zero.

House Bill 47 improves Maryland's current policies regarding the release of impaired drivers by assuring that persons who take custody of such drivers from law enforcement agencies are aware of the potential liability that may ensue from allowing the driver to operate a motor vehicle while still impaired.

In 2000, impaired driving resulted in 16,653 alcohol-related fatalities nationwide, with hard core drinking drivers involved in 6,114, or almost 40 percent of these deaths. Here in Maryland, 225 persons died in alcohol-related highway crashes. Clearly, much needs to be done to reduce this ongoing tragedy on Maryland's highways.

Thank you for allowing the Safety Board to testify about this important legislation that you can enact to save lives on streets and highways in Maryland. I would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.