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Under Florida state law, a person who sells or provides alcohol to someone of lawful drinking age is not liable for any damage which may occur as a result of the drinker's intoxication. This current statute has been the source of much heated debate across the state of Florida recently, with bartenders voicing their staunch support of law and activist groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving voicing their opinion that the law is overly broad and irresponsible in practice.
The question of a bartender's culpability arose after Army Lieutenant Tyler L. Peterson and a friend spent the evening bar-hopping late November of this year. The evening culminated in a deadly head-on collision on the Pensacola Bay Bridge which occurred as a result of Peterson driving the wrong direction on the bridge. The accident claimed his life, as well as the life of Antonio Fulfer, who was returning home from work late that evening.
Gulf Breeze Assistant Police Chief Robert Randall stated that Peterson and his friend, Army Captain Jesse Erickson, spent the evening at several different bars, including the Pensacola Ale House, New York Nick's, Starbuck's Billiard Room, and Intermission. Erickson told police that he asked the Intermission bartender to stop serving Peterson because he had imbibed several alcohol beverages in quick succession. At approximately 10:30 p.m., Peterson excused himself from the bar and headed towards the bathroom. The accident occurred at about 12:30 a.m. that morning. Peterson's whereabouts for the two hour period preceding the accident are unknown.
Curt Bol was working as a bartender at Intermission the evening of the fatal accident. He stated, "I've been doing this a long time, and I know that I have no way to control where my customers have been or whatever substances they have in their body. I can't demand their keys. I can't take anything from them, but somehow I am responsible? I'm not the baby-sitter here."
Bartender Shana Gilman voiced her support of the limit of culpability for bartenders, stating, "People serving alcohol should be responsible about who they serve and who they choose not to serve. But there's only so much I can control. In the end, someone can sneak out and drink in their car or they can go to another bar. Then how much responsibility can you put on me?"
The owner of Intermission, Mike Ashby, stated that he is confident that none of his staff served Peterson any alcoholic beverages. However, the more important factor which must be determined, he stated, is whether Peterson was even in Intermission during that two hour window between the time he was cut off by his friend and when the fatal accident occurred. The limited liability law is designed to protect bartenders and bar owners from liability in situations where individuals drink alcoholic beverages at a number of locations or sneak alcoholic beverages without the bartenders knowledge. In these cases, the legislature argues, bartenders should not be held accountable for these individual's irresponsible actions.
In support of this debate, many local bar and restaurant owners have said that they require their employees to participate in special training in order to handle individuals who have overindulged. According to Tom Carmichael, general manager of Capt'n Fun at Pensacola Beach, "There are common sense things that you look for. In this business you can tell when somebody has had too much, when walking and talking changes. If the bartender makes the call to cut somebody off, nobody will override that decision."
However, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), the state law limiting liability should be changed. Florida's MADD chapter has voiced their intention to push for a change to the liability law in the next legislative session. "If you look at the current legislation, there is little motivation for a server to be cognizant of the patrons they are serving," stated Todd Rosenbaum, director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving of Northwest Florida. Currently, the only way a bartender can be held liable is by serving a customer with a known alcohol addiction or by serving an individual under the age of twenty one. MADD believes that this law should be changed to include liability for bartenders who are found to have served "clearly intoxicated patrons." This proposal by MADD has drawn a large amount of criticism, as individuals question how "clearly intoxicated" would be defined and who will be responsible for drafting the definition of an individual "clearly intoxicated."
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Recent figures released by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) indicate that Alabama has one of the highest percentages of repeat drunk driving offenders in the United States. With a statewide population of just over 4.6 million, MADD statistics indicate that there are approximately 22,000 individuals living in Alabama with five or more DUI convictions.
While there are two other states with higher numbers of individuals who have been convicted of driving under the influence five or more times, the populations of these two states are much higher than Alabama's. In the state of California, which has a population of nearly thirty eight million, 44,219 people have been convicted of driving under the influence five or more times. Additionally, the state of Ohio has a population of nearly twelve million and approximately 33,000 people have been convicted of drunk driving five or more times.
The MADD report also revealed that there are fifty one individuals residing within Alabama who have amassed more than twenty DUI convictions, including one individual who has been convicted an astounding thirty three times.
Statistics also indicated that there is a very high correlation between driving under the influence and highway fatalities. Of the 1,110 highway deaths which occurred in Alabama last year, more than 42% were alcohol related. Colonel J. Christopher Murphy responded to MADD's statistics stating, "We're very concerned about all fatalities, and particularly those caused by impaired drivers. We see a DUI as a fatality waiting to happen."
In an effort to decrease the percentage of driving under the influence accidents, the state of Alabama has purchased nine new blood alcohol testing vehicles, or "BATmobiles". These vehicles greatly increase the speed of chemical testing for individuals suspected of driving under the influence, which leaves higher numbers of law enforcement officials available to participate in roaming patrols. The purchase of these "BATmobiles" has made a significant impact on Alabama's drunk driving enforcement. According to Colonel Murphy, this year state troopers have made 200 additional DUI arrests compared to last year and there have been 114 fewer fatalities than this time last year.
However, there is one particular area of the law that MADD has isolated as Alabama's weak spot in the fight against drunk driving. Alabama is one of three states in America that does not have any ignition interlock law in effect. Prior efforts to pass ignition interlock laws have stalled in the Alabama Legislature. However, Colonel Murphy has voiced his desire to work with members of MADD and other law enforcement agencies in order to get an ignition interlock law approved during the next legislative session.
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In a report released Thursday, October 9, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) stated that judges and prosecutors are endangering the public's lives by showing leniency in sentencing for convicted driving while intoxicated (DWI) offenders. MADD investigated 1,300 cases in order to determine why so many multiple DWI offenders are allowed to get back behind the wheel of a car, even after a pattern of reckless behavior has been established.
Based on their investigation, MADD concluded that, in many cases, convicted DWI offenders are offered plea bargains with reduced sentences. In Albuquerque, New Mexico's Metro Court, MADD offered statistics indicating that 42% of drunk drivers who pleaded guilty ended up being sentenced for lesser charges. In a majority of the cases, the guilty individuals were initially charged with aggravated DWI for driving with extremely high blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) or because they had multiple DWI offenses on their record.
MADD says that judges and prosecutors should eliminate leniency in sentencing and instead stick with the stricter DWI charges in order to keep repeat drunk drivers off of the street. Unfortunately, Bernalillo County DWI prosecutor Gary Cade says that convictions on tougher, DWI charges are not always possible to obtain; based on the large amount of DWI cases filed in the area and the deadlines associated with the filing of such cases. Oftentimes, prosecutors are forced to negotiate a reduced sentence in order to obtain a result before the filing period expires, even if the result is not favorable.
MADD has also found that in McKinley County, New Mexico, 72% of alcohol ignition interlock requirements were waived in court because the judge took the driver at their word when the individual claimed that he or she did not own a car. One of the first recommendations MADD made in their report was for the court to check into the veracity of the claims before deciding whether or not to waive the alcohol ignition interlock device requirement during sentencing.
In order to cut down on the number of individuals with multiple DWI offenses, MADD has also suggested that probation officers or court officers check on convicted drunk drivers to make sure that they do not have access to a vehicle. Another recommendation was for the courts to require DWI offenders who claim to not own a vehicle to wear an alcohol monitoring device, which tests the perspiration collected from the air above the individual's skin for alcohol twice an hour.
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Despite the fact that police use of roadblocks and sobriety checkpoints has become increasingly prevalent in recent years, a recent study has found that there is not enough evidence to definitively say that the increased police efforts effectively cut down on the number of driving under the influence related accidents and fatalities. According to lead reviewer Cynthia Goss, of the Colorado Injury Control Research Center and the Colorado School of Public Health, "Increased police patrols might be effective, but we do not yet have enough evidence to prove that they are."
The review will appear in the current issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, which is an international organization that evaluates research conducted on topics affecting health care. The review provided its' conclusion on the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints after considering the content and quality of thirty-two existing studies on the topic. The studies were chosen based on strict selection criteria, which required, "Randomized controlled trials, controlled trials, controlled before and after studies, interrupted time series (ITS) studies, and controlled ITS studies evaluating increased police patrols...."
In a majority of the thirty-two studies, the specific intent of the police initiated checkpoints and roadblocks was to locate individuals suspected of driving under the influence, while also serving as a deterrent to individuals who may potentially choose to drink and drive. Some of the police interventions were also aimed at reducing other traffic violations, such as speeding or driving without a valid license.
Most of these studies revealed that increased police patrols reduced traffic crashes and fatalities, but evidence on the effect of traffic injuries was less consistent. The reviewers concluded that in most of the studies, the results may have been biased or unreliable due to their weak or unclear quality. "Methodological limitations included inadequate sample size, dissimilar baseline measures, contamination, and inadequate data analysis. Thus, existing evidence, although supportive, does not firmly establish whether increased police patrols, implemented with or without other intervention elements, reduce the adverse consequences of alcohol-impaired driving."
Goss explained The Cochrane Collaboration's rationale, stating, "Study quality cannot be separated from study results. A poor quality study can make the intervention look better- or worse- than it really is." Reviewers discovered that the detail provided on the methodology of included studies was uniformly poor, and the quality of the finalized reports was equally weak. Reviewers felt that studies assessing the cost-effectiveness of the sobriety checkpoints and roadblocks were necessary in order to truly determine effectiveness of heightened police intervention. No such studies were included in the review.
MADD national president, Laura Dean-Mooney contested The Cochrane Collaboration's findings, asserting that, "Federal research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that sobriety checkpoints reduce alcohol related crashes and fatalities by up to twenty-four percent. Checkpoints are one of the most effective tools we have to deter drunk driving." MADD officials have stated in the past that just because a sobriety checkpoint doesn't yield any arrests doesn't mean that the heightened police efforts are not working. Instead, MADD insists that a lack of arrests for DUI related violations during a police checkpoint illustrates the effective deterrent power police checkpoints have over individuals who may have otherwise chosen to drink and drive.
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On Monday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin signed into law a measure that requires all individuals convicted of driving under the influence to install an ignition interlock device in their vehicles. The bill, H.B. 19, passed in both the Alaska House and Senate unanimously. According to the national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Glynn Birch, "This new law will make it harder for offenders to kill and injure others on our roadways".
An ignition interlock device is a breath test that is linked to the vehicle's ignition system. When a convicted drunk driver wishes to start his or her vehicle, the individual is required to first blow into the device. The vehicle will not start if the amount of alcohol in the individual's system exceeds the preset limit. Some ignition interlock devices also have the ability to be set for running retests, which require a driver to provide breath tests at regular intervals during the drive, which helps to prevent motorists from asking a sober friend to start the car. If a driver fails a running retest, the vehicle's horn will honk and lights will flash, alerting law enforcement to the individual. However, the vehicle is not programmed to turn off if an individual fails a running retest, due to safety reasons.
By signing H.B. 19 into law, Alaska has joined the ranks of seven other states, New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Washington, Nebraska, and Colorado, who are attempting to further the goals of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving. The Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving has four essential elements, which include: mandatory ignition interlocks for all convicted drunk drivers, increased law enforcement efforts, advanced vehicle technology that would make it impossible for a drunk person to start a vehicle, and public support led by concerned citizens nationwide. The MADD Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving was initiated in November 2006, with the express goal of eliminating drunk driving permanently.
MADD has supported the Alaska legislature's decision to sign H.B. 19 into law by providing statistics indicating that in 2006, twenty seven percent of traffic fatalities in the state of Alaska involved an individual driving under the influence of alcohol. According to the Alaska legislature and MADD, requiring individuals convicted of DUI to install these ignition interlock devices is a necessary step in order to permanently decrease the number of driving under the influence related accidents and fatalities.
However, the recent nationwide trend of heightening penalties for individuals convicted of DUI has not received entirely positive reviews. For every individual who is in favor of the new law designed to cut down on the number of individuals who drive while under the influence of alcohol, there is another individual who sees the law as an overzealous attack on an individual's personal freedom.
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