Is the Party Finally Over?

By Bennett H. Beach

Crackdown on drunken drivers raises hopes--and doubts

In a current series of advertisements, F. Lee Bailey has been speaking up for the quality of his favorite vodka. Last week the noted Boston attorney found himself speaking instead for the quality of his sobriety and doing it in an unfamiliar place: the witness stand. On trial for drunken driving in San Francisco, Bailey faced a vigorous prosecution featuring seven police witnesses. Such cases usually take three days; Bailey's is in its third week. Fumed the defendant: "It's being tried like a murder case. It's a cause celebre." The hardball prosecution is one example--though an extreme one--of society's lost patience with drunken drivers and the increasingly rough treatment they now face from California to Minnesota to Maine. Says a police official in North Attleborough, Mass.: "The party's over."

If so, it would be a remarkable achievement, for the toll exacted by drunken drivers has been numbingly consistent over the years. In an average week, nearly 500 Americans die in alcohol-related auto accidents; 20,000 more are injured. The light legal penalties and the high public tolerance for that carnage may now be ending. Last week the Reagan Administration announced the formation of a 30-member commission to coordinate anti-drunken driving efforts and focus public attention on the problem.

The commission will hardly be breaking new ground. Outraged families of victims, organized in groups like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), have doggedly lobbied to produce tough new statutes in half the states over the past year. Under a bill passed by Florida's legislature, a first conviction would bring a minimum fine of $250, plus 50 hours of required community service and a six-month loss of license. For a second offense, the minimum penalties would jump to $500 and ten days in jail. To step up the rate of conviction, many states have made a blood-alcohol level of .10% in drivers a crime in itself, rather than merely evidence of intoxication that must be buttressed by other proof. (To score .10%, a 160-lb. man would have to consume 5 1/2 beers on an empty stomach in 90 minutes.) Even the judiciary, often criticized for being too lenient with drunken drivers, is becoming stern. Judges in Quincy, Mass., have agreed to put every first offender in jail for three days.

The courtroom is not the only place where drunken driving is under attack.

American ingenuity has produced some novel ideas. Police increasingly videotape the slurring and lurching of detained driv ers for use later as evidence. In Los Angeles some second-time offenders have to use a specially equipped car. After turning on the ignition, the driver must maneuver the steering wheel so that a needle moves into the "pass" area on a gauge. In Maine, Beer Distributor Frank Gaziano of South Portland is pushing bar owners to buy breath analyzers. The customer puts 500 in the slot and blows into the machine through a straw; a red light goes on for a score of . 10% or higher.

The new legal crackdown is prompting a predictable legal response. Fearing the escalated penalties, those arrested are more inclined to pay lawyers $600 for a simple defense, or even $6,000 for a trial.

With expert witnesses the defense can attack the reliability of alcohol tests. Lawyers are also challenging the new laws on constitutional grounds. Three local judges have already disapproved California's new .10% blood-level law. And jurors are often sympathetic. Says Minneapolis Lawyer Donald Nichols: "They feel, 'There but for the grace of God go I.' "

Even so, the new laws seem to be getting results. California, for example, reports fewer accidents and deaths during the three months its statutes have been in place. But most researchers insist that such success will be short-lived; within two years, things will be back to normal.

That is the lesson taught by every similar effort dating back to a 1936 Norwegian crackdown. In a just published study, H.

Laurence Ross attributes most initial success to publicity generated by tougher laws. Furthermore, a drunken driver has only a one-in-2,000 chance of being arrested. "People catch on after a while," says Joseph Gusfield, a sociology professor at the University of California at San Diego and author of a new book on the subject.

Observes David Reed, in a report for the National Research Council: "Those who currently drive drunk are not deterred by the small risk of a very severe penalty -- accidental death."

There are better remedies, say experts.

One is not so much tougher laws as tougher enforcement: more arrests, swifter sentencing. Another helpful approach being taken by many states is to raise the drinking age. More important still would be such safety improvements as reduced speed limits and greater use of seat belts.

Finally, there is a need to change the entrenched social acceptability of the crime.

Right now, says one California motor vehicle official, "we still laugh at Charlie driving home drunk and just barely missing someone, rather than considering it a shocking thing." -- By Bennett H. Beach.

Reported by Joseph Pilcher/ Los Angeles, with other bureaus

With reporting by Joseph Pilcher/Los Angeles

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