YORK --
Surrounded by police and legislators who lauded him for signing a
tougher drunken-driving law Thursday, Gov. Mark Sanford heard from
one lady who waited until the after signing ceremony to offer her
thanks.
Quietly, Belva Howard approached Sanford at the York County
Sheriff's Office in memory of her late husband, Allan -- killed in
April 2002 by a repeat drunken driver.
The new limit for blood-alcohol concentration drops from .10 to
.08 effective Aug. 19 with the law that Sanford said, "Is about
saving lives."
"Stupid is getting in your car when you have had too much to
drink and endangering your life, or more importantly, somebody
else's life," Sanford said.
"I don't want anybody to go through what me and my three children
have gone through," Howard said. "My kids miss their daddy. That
drunk driver took everything."
Some lawmakers and Mothers Against Drunk Driving had pushed for
years to lower the limit, but it took a combination of lobbying plus
the threat of losing $63 million in federal road maintenance money
to push the new law through the General Assembly at the tail end of
this year's session. Sanford's support of the lower limit was
crucial to the Legislature finally acting, said MADD's Laura
Hudson.
Donna Carter of MADD spoke for drunken-driving victims, calling
Thurs-day "a victorious day."
Sanford said he picked York County for the signing because of the
role played by several members of the county's legislative
delegation to push through the lower limit. Five hundred ninety-one
people died on South Carolina roads in 2001 in alcohol-related
wrecks, Sanford said. South Caro-lina's drunken-driving fatality
rate, at twice the national average, is the worst in the nation.
Only a few states do not have .08 as the legal limit.
"When legislators are soft on DUI, we all pay for it," said Sen.
Wes Hayes, R-Rock Hill. "We pay for it in health care and other
costs. But most important, we pay for it in lives."
Sanford said he does not like the idea of the federal government
bullying states to change laws by threatening to withhold money. But
the new law, he said, makes South Carolina roads safer and will get
the state much-needed cash for roads he described as "fairly
deplorable."
Contact Andrew Dys at 329-4065 or mailto:adys@heraldonline.com
| What's next |
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The drunken-driving law signed Thursday by Gov. Mark
Sanford lowers the legal blood-alcohol concentration limit in
South Carolina from .10 to .08. The new law goes into effect
Aug. 19.
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