Federal mandate was just one reason to adopt DUI standard

e-mail this story discuss this issue in our forums Guest column • Larry A. Martin: Federal mandate was just one reason to adopt DUI standard (06/16/03) • David H. Wilkins: Budget crisis overshadowed year of sweeping reform (06/14/03) • Richard Eckstrom: State must address its looming COLA financial crisis (06/12/03) • Danny Varat: Equity funding necessary to equal treatment of students (06/11/03) • Patricia Harrison: Small-town festivals draw us together (06/10/03) More details Larry Martin, environmental safety manager for Alice Manufacturing Co., represents District 2, which includes most of Pickens County, in the South Carolina Senate.

The reluctance to bow to the federal mandate drove some of the opposition to this much-needed change in state law. Some of the opposition was satisfied with the current .10 for a DUI charge and simply did not want to lower it. For the rest of us, the debate was about what we could do to reduce drunk driving in our state.

The latest rankings placed South Carolina near the top of the states in alcohol-related highway deaths. Here at home, Pickens County has experienced a 50 percent increase in alcohol-related traffic fatalities. Fortunately, as the legislative session drew to a close, the certain loss of federal highway funds won out over the recriminations about federal meddling and the outright opposition to strengthening South Carolina's DUI statute.

The debate was made more difficult in the Senate as we received conflicting information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) when questions arose about the federal requirements. For example, we almost lost the administrative license revocation statute (ALR) over the opposition of my colleagues in the Senate to lowering the current .15 BAC to .08 BAC. (This statute requires immediate license revocation for a driver who registers .15 or greater on the DataMaster test, regardless of the disposition of the DUI charge itself.)

We were informed in writing that for the state to comply with the federal mandate that the administrative license revocation statute had to be lowered to .08. However, we were also informed that the federal law did not mandate that a state have an ALR provision in its law. So, in order to move the bill to the Senate floor, we agreed to strike the ALR provision. My ultimate strategy was to work to restore the ALR provision when the bill went to conference with the House.

Thankfully, we inquired of NHTSA a second time about the ALR provision. With just a few days left in the session, we received yet another response that the federal mandate did not apply to the ALR provision. We quickly agreed in the conference committee to leave the current .15 ALR provision intact.

A major source of disagreement in the conference committee, however, was over a Senate amendment that would require a DataMaster operator to strictly follow the procedures and regulations of SLED when conducting the test. My Senate colleagues who sponsored the amendment argued that with the lower .08 BAC standard it was crucial for the test to be administered correctly. The House conferees and other critics of the provision charged that a very minor or insignificant oversight in the administration of the DataMaster would result in routine dismissals of DUI charges. We finally reached agreement on language that stated a failure to specifically follow the procedures and policies of SLED had to have a "material" effect on the outcome of the test.

Finally, it took quite a bit of give and take on the last day of the session to negotiate a final agreement on the .08 DUI bill. Much of the credit for the eventual success of our efforts, as our deadline approached, must go to Gov. Mark Sanford. The governor sat with us for almost two hours during the final discussions on the bill and helped to encourage an agreement when it seemed there very well might not be one.

The new .08 DUI law will go into effect on Aug. 19. This time frame will enable law enforcement to incorporate the changes necessary to enforce the law. Most importantly, the lower .08 DUI standard should impact the public's view of mixing alcohol consumption and the operation of a motor vehicle. My sincere hope is that, because of this new law, this time next year we will see a decrease in alcohol-related highway deaths.