Alcohol-impaired driving continues to be a major public health problem in the United States. During 2000, alcohol was involved in 40% of all traffic fatalities (1). One promising countermeasure to alcohol-impaired driving is the ignition interlock license restriction program. Ignition interlock devices are designed to prevent an alcohol-impaired driver from starting and operating a motor vehicle. License restriction means that drivers are approved for license reinstatement on the condition that they agree to a license restriction prohibiting them from operating a vehicle without an ignition interlock device. The conditional interlock license restriction is prominently displayed on the driver's license of each program participant. Ignition interlock license restrictions have shown potential for reducing recidivism among drivers with multiple alcohol-related traffic offenses (2). Later analyses of this same cohort examined recidivism rates 3 and 4 years after study entry (3, 4). In the current paper, new recidivism rates for the one year interlock license restriction program and second (i.e., first year post-interlock) through fifth year (i.e., fourth year post-interlock) of follow-up are presented using newly developed electronic data abstraction methods. There was no statistically significant difference in the recidivism rates for the interlock license restriction (4.0%) and control groups (4.8%) in the fifth year after study entry.
The alcohol interlock record is the first extensive behavioral record that has ever been available to help researchers understand DWI offenders. The average interlock device in Alberta Canada logs over 2300 breath tests during an average 9 months of interlock use. Analysis of the patterns of violations makes available new predictive information for scaling driver risk. Recent work (Marques et al., 2001, Marques et al., 2002) has shown the overall rate of elevated BAC tests during the first several months of use strongly predicts repeat DWI after the interlock has been removed. This report further analyzes the record of 5.5 million BAC tests in Alberta and finds that even after accounting for strong predictors of post-interlock recidivism such as prior repeat DWI and the overall prediction based on higher rates of failed interlock BAC tests, if the BAC tests failures occur in the morning (e.g., BAC still >=.04 gm/dl presumably from previous night drinking) there is an additional 45% higher likelihood of later having a new repeat DWI. Also, evidence is presented that offenders who decrease their overall interlock vehicle use (fewer tests taken over interlock use time) have a higher likelihood of recidivism post-interlock.
Any First Alcohol-Impaired Driving Event Is a Significant and Substantial Predictor of Future Recidivism
It is a widely held belief among the legislative and judicial branches of state government in the United States that first offenders criminally convicted of violating an alcohol-related traffic law are drivers with a single and isolated alcohol-related event. This finding is inconsistent with published estimates that a person can drive while impaired by alcohol 200 to 2,000 times before being arrested once (1-6). Moreover, some drivers manage to have their records expunged under certain conditions and many state motor vehicle administration (MVA) offices routinely purge driving records after a set number of years. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the typical so-called first offender will have had an extensive history of alcohol-impaired driving by the time he or she makes it into the MVA's record system. The low probability of arrest (much less conviction) for alcohol-impaired driving, the practice of expunging and/or purging driver records, and the leniency with which state legislative and judicial systems handle so-called first offenders warrants a closer look at administrative, criminal, and diversion sanctions and the impact of “disposition sequence” on the deterrence of alcohol-impaired driving.
It is a widely held belief among the legislative and judicial branches of state government in the United States that first offenders criminally convicted of violating an alcohol-related traffic law are drivers with a single and isolated alcohol-related event. This finding is inconsistent with published estimates that a person can drive while impaired by alcohol 200 to 2,000 times before being arrested once (1-6). Moreover, some drivers manage to have their records expunged under certain conditions and many state motor vehicle administration (MVA) offices routinely purge driving records after a set number of years. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the typical so-called first offender will have had an extensive history of alcohol-impaired driving by the time he or she makes it into the MVA's record system. The low probability of arrest (much less conviction) for alcohol-impaired driving, the practice of expunging and/or purging driver records, and the leniency with which state legislative and judicial systems handle so-called first offenders warrants a closer look at administrative, criminal, and diversion sanctions and the impact of “disposition sequence” on the deterrence of alcohol-impaired driving.
The Illinois ignition interlock law first went into effect in 1994 when the installation of ignition interlock devices was added to the package of sanctions for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) of Alcohol (625ILCS5/11-501(6)(i)). Previously, repeat offenders could petition the Secretary of State (SOS) for a restricted driving permit (RDP) after serving some period of license loss, and such permits generally were issued without other requirements. With the enacting of the ignition interlock legislation, those individuals would also need to install an interlock as an additional requirement for receiving the RDP. It was and still is an administrative program requiring the installation of an interlock as a condition of the RDP. Offenders had and have the option of not reinstating their licenses and not installing an interlock. Accordingly, the interlock users were and continue to be a group of people who are motivated to get their license back legitimately, and are, perhaps, more likely to succeed on the interlock than those who choose not to reinstate their license and install a device. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) agreed to provide some funding for an evaluation of the program in collaboration with the Illinois Secretary of State. This paper reports on the results of that evaluation.
Since their introduction nearly two decades ago , considerable knowledge and experience have been accumulated on alcohol interlock programs. Researchers, interlock service providers, and program administrators attended two workshops – the first to help identify a series of best practices for interlock program development; the second to discuss the use of interlocks as part of a licence reinstatement program for DWI offenders.