IL- DUIs fail to keep some drivers off the streets

This is a new thought, a registry of REVOKED licenses. Also, online lists are not meant to PREVENT crime!

Alcohol.Related Crashes and Children:
In 2006, a total of 419 (23%) of the fatalities among children age 14 and younger occurred in crashes involving alcohol. Of those 419 fatalities, 202 were passengers in vehicles with drivers who had been drinking with blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels of .01 gram per deciliter (g/dL) or higher. An additional 108 children were killed as passengers in vehicles with drivers who had not been drinking.Another 62 children age 14 and younger who were killed in traffic crashes in 2006 were pedestrians or pedalcyclists who were struck by drinking drivers (BAC .01 g/dL or higher).

5-12-2008 Illinois:

SMITHTON -- Ronald W. Cornstubble is free on $10,000 bond posted last month in Monroe County Court where he was indicted on two felonies -- aggravated drunken driving and driving while his license was revoked.

Yet on Thursday evening, the 45-year-old used car salesman drove a late model Nissan Altima from a dealer's lot in Belleville where he works to the parking lot of the Dollar General in Smithton. Then he walked to a nearby strip mall and entered No Jacks Bar and Grill.

Cornstubble, of Red Bud, had his photograph taken by a News-Democrat reporter as he got out of the Nissan, which sported a dealer license plate.

"Thanks a lot," he said, when told his picture would be published. He declined further comment, but on Friday said he had arranged other transportation and would no longer drive.

Cornstubble is facing his third DUI. It's his second to be charged as a felony. Two previous DUI convictions involved accidents, including one in 1998 in St. Clair County that injured his teenage son who was in the passenger seat, and another in 2006 in Randolph County when he fell to the ground on his motorcycle with a rider on the back. A police report states he hasn't held a valid driver's license since it was revoked in 1998.

Each time he was charged with drunken driving, Cornstubble hired self-described "DUI King" attorney Tom Daley's Belleville law firm, paid a fine and avoided a lengthy jail term. Daley said he could not comment on a pending case.

Stopping persons from driving who lose their driving privileges because of DUI convictions is nearly impossible, said David Malham, a state spokesman for Illinois Mothers Against Drunk Driving in Chicago.

According to figures for 2006, the latest available, 444 persons died in Illinois in crashes involving a driver whose blood alcohol was at 0.08, the state limit, or higher.

Malham favors setting up an online list of people whose licenses have been revoked. This would include their photographs, similar to the Illinois State Police Sex Offender Registry. He said this could alert motorists to potentially dangerous drivers.

"A person driving without a license gets nabbed for it, goes to court, pays a fine and then goes out and drives home. And when he gets caught again, he goes to court and pays another fine," he said, "It's something out of 'Alice in Wonderland.'"

Malham said that a Web site for drivers with revoked licenses would add public stigma that could discourage illegal driving.

"The person's name and picture goes up on a Web site that is easily located. There's actually embarrassment here," he said, "Maybe that would eventually incline the courts to treat this with something more than a silly kind of a slap on the wrist."

Trisha Clegg, affiliate executive director of Illinois MADD, said that while an online list has been discussed, the group's main focus is to prevent drunken driving, especially through a recently passed state law that takes effect in January requiring vehicles registered to persons whose licenses are suspended because of a DUI conviction to be equipped with "ignition interlocks." This would apply only to persons who are issued restricted licenses that allow them on the road during a suspension. A person can have up to three DUI convictions and still drive with an interlock.

--Interesting comment, which means, that ONLINE LISTS are not meant to PREVENT crime.

A driver of a vehicle with an interlock would have to blow into a breath alcohol device and register below 0.08 of a percent of alcohol, the state legal limit, before the engine could be started. Once the license is reinstated, the device would not have to be used.

A person whose own vehicle requires an interlock commits a felony if he drives any other vehicle without an interlock, the law states.

"The goal is to get at people who drink and drive," Clegg said.

While the interlock law will require even first-time DUI offenders to pay for and use the interlock to drive during a suspension, offenders who flout the law will likely continue to drink and just get behind the wheel, taking their chances of getting stopped, Malham said.

Cornstubble doesn't have a vehicle registered in his name, and his job allows him to drive any car on the dealer's lot. When he was arrested in April, he was driving a 2002 Ford with the same dealer plate that was on the Nissan, DL 6969 A.

Markiesha Triplett, 24, of Washington Park, has never held an Illinois driver's license, according to Secretary of State records. She was sentenced Wednesday by St. Clair County Circuit Judge Annette Eckert to probation and a 90-day county jail term after pleading guilty earlier to aggravated DUI involving a death. A reckless homicide charge was dismissed. Triplett is set for release on June 22.

On May 8, 2005, Triplett drove drunk and ran a traffic light in East St. Louis, striking motorcyclist Anthony Johnson, who was killed. Her breath alcohol registered 0.21, slightly over two and one half times the legal limit, according to a police report.

Malham, the Illinois MADD spokesman, said that the public believes that with the widespread establishment of groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the problem of DUI related deaths and injuries has been controlled.

"They think we can fold our tents and go home," he said, "If only they knew that while there is an appearance of having won it, the reality is, it's still business as usual." ..more.. by George Pawlaczyk at gpawlaczyk@bnd.com and 239-2625.