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.
Governor Nixon discusses DWI proposal in Overland, Missouri (UPI / Bill Greenblatt)
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