AB547 Highlights

This comprehensive OWI prevention package complements the drunken driving legislation that passed the Assembly last month by targeting first-time offenders and increasing the likelihood that offenders will be caught.

We crafted this bill with significant help from a bipartisan legislative workgroup we created almost a year ago that includes highway safety experts; law enforcement officers; district attorneys; public defenders; judges; behavioral, impaired driving and corrections researchers; health care providers; victims' families; and others. We first met in November 2008, soon after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other papers published extensive reports on the devastating toll drunken driving has taken on Wisconsin families and our state. Our workgroup has met several times since that initial meeting to discuss at length several different approaches to combat impaired driving in Wisconsin. After receiving input and recommendations from experts and professionals in their respective fields, we are moving forward with what we believe is a reasonable OWI reform package that, when combined with the OWI legislation that already passed the Assembly, will demonstrate that Wisconsin is finally serious about taking a stand against drunken driving and all of the pain, suffering and loss it causes. Our bill has the following eight provisions.

1. Criminalizes first-offense Operating While Intoxicated

The bill makes first-offense OWI a Class C Misdemeanor (Maximum $500 fine and/or imprisonment not to exceed 30 days), retains judicial discretion in sentencing and delays the effective date until July 1, 2011.

Seventy-five (75%) of drinking drivers involved in fatal or serious injury crashes in Wisconsin have no prior history of operating while intoxicated. Any effort that is serious about reducing the devastating human and economic toll caused by drunken driving must target these drivers and deter them from ever getting behind the wheel in the first place. Wisconsin is the only state in the nation that treats first-offense drunken driving the same as a traffic ticket. The fatalities and injuries caused by a first time offender are no different than those caused by a repeat offender. First time OWI must be a crime every time.

2. Permits Sobriety Checkpoints

Local law enforcement would be allowed, but not required, to conduct sobriety checkpoints pursuant to rules established by the Law Enforcement Standards Board.

Many people continue to drive drunk because they don't get caught and there are no consequences for their actions. In fact, first-time offenders have driven drunk an average of 87 times before they are caught, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Sobriety checkpoints increase the probability that a drunk driver will get caught and have been shown in several studies to be effective in reducing alcohol-related crashes and fatalities.

3. Requires absolute sobriety for repeat offenders

Offenders convicted of first or second OWI would be prohibited from driving with a blood alcohol content above 0.02 for two years after the offense.

4. Makes Offenders Pay

Counties would be required to seek reimbursement from jail inmates for the costs counties incur to hold them. Current law allows, but does not require, counties to pursue this option.

5. Makes Jail Means Jail

For OWI offenses that carry a mandatory minimum sentence, offenders would be required to serve at least that mandatory minimum in jail.

6. Sends Serious Offenders Directly to Jail After Conviction

For OWI convictions that carry a minimum period of imprisonment, courts would be prohibited from releasing the offender after conviction but before sentencing until they have served at least the minimum period of imprisonment.

7. Closes the 0.08 loophole

First time OWI offenders with a blood alcohol content between 0.08 and 0.99 would be subjected to the same fees, surcharges and assessments as all other OWI offenders.

8. Creates an Intoxicated and Drugged Driver Fund

Beginning on July 1, 2011, the first $10 million generated by the existing state liquor and wine tax would be deposited into a new segregated OWI fund to be allocated to:

  • District attorneys, public defenders, circuit courts and counties to pay the costs each incurs in relation to prosecuting first-offense OWI cases.
  • The Department of Health Services' Intoxicated Driver Program, which provides supplemental funding to county programs to help fund treatment services for indigent clients.