A package of proposals to plug holes in Missouri’s drunk driving laws will be one of the Governor’s top priorities for the next legislative session, that starts in less than a month. He says too many people convinced multiple times of drunk driving are getting back on the road.
The package will be introduced in the House. It enhances penalties for people with blood-alcohol levels of point one-five or higher. It requires better record-keeping of DWI convictions at all levels and moves many cases out of municipal courts into circuit courts. It also makes it a crime for a driver to refuse to take a blood-alcohol test. One part of the proposal would require law enforcement agencies at all levels to report all DWI arrests to the Highway Patrol, where a record would be kept regardless of the disposition of the case.
The recommendations stem from the work of a task force assembled for the Governor by the Department of Public Safety. Reports earlier this year in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about repeat drunk drivers getting behind the wheel triggered the task force study.
Bob Priddy interviews Nixon 4:57
