Kansas Debates Ignition Lock Reporting Amendment

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Some fear a proposed amendment to a drunken driving bill would make it easier for DUI offenders to avoid getting a device that prevents them from starting their vehicles if they have had too much to drink.

That’s because the amendment would remove the requirement that the drunken drivers who are required to get ignition interlock devices report to the state that they had done so.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving national president Laura Dean-Mooney is urging lawmakers to eliminate the amendment.

The Wichita Eagle reported that Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook offered the amendment to address an issue a constituent had alerted her to. The constituent was required by the court to drive with the ignition interlock device for a year. But the constituent did not have a car.

“I don’t want people to drive drunk,” said Cook, a Shawnee Republican. “I want our roads to be safe; I just want to find a solution for everybody.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lance Kinzer anticipates the amendment will be altered or removed when his members take up the issue this coming week.

Currently, drivers who are convicted of a second drunken-driving offense, who refuse a breathalyzer test or who are caught with a .15 blood alcohol level — almost twice the legal limit of .08 — must drive for a year or more with an interlock device, said Marcy Ralston, chief of the state Driver Control Bureau, Division of Motor Vehicles.

The devices cost $50 to $70 for installation and $65 to $75 a month in fees after that.

Once the devices are installed, the installation company notifies the state and the clock starts running on how long the device must be on the car, Ralston said.

“Your driving privilege is not reinstated until you’ve kept that interlock for the full period,” she said.

She said compliance was low before the state began requiring the notifications in July 2006 because many drivers would simply drive without the devices and risk getting pulled over.

House Assistant Minority Leader Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, said he thought the idea should be removed from the bill and sent to the state’s DUI Commission for study. The commission is in the midst of a comprehensive overhaul of Kansas’ drunken-driving laws.

“There are a few … people without a vehicle, but they are very few,” Ward said “We don’t want to throw the baby and the bathwater out.”