Well-aimed driving bills miss mark

A couple of driving-related bills before the Legislature this winter are proof that when emotion rules in the making of laws, reason and logic can fly right out the car window.

The first proposal, back in January, carried the amusing title “An Act to Protect Motor Vehicles from Dangerous Pedestrians.” You might have read about that corker. It was sponsored by a Saco legislator whose aim was to get rid of Maine’s 35-year-old law requiring motorists to yield the right of way to pedestrians who use marked crosswalks to get across the street.

The bill was conceived in part by a near-tragedy the lawmaker witnessed when a teenager was struck by a driver who hadn’t seen him in the crosswalk. The legislator then reasoned, in a curious twist of logic, that crosswalks actually did more harm than good by giving pedestrians a false sense of security, thereby making them a danger to motorists who might run them down.

Not surprisingly, that bill didn’t get far.

Neither should the newest illogical proposal by a South Portland legislator to beef up the state’s OUI laws by making both the drunken driver and his drunken passengers responsible for alcohol-related accidents. Essentially, the bill says that friends must not let friends drive drunk, especially if they happen to be drunk themselves while riding in the same car.

According to Kevin Glynn, who brought this to the Criminal Justice Committee on Monday, when a group of people are out drinking together, the least intoxicated among them is often pressured by his more besotted friends to do the driving. In an accident, therefore, the intoxicated passengers should have to bear at least a minimal share of the blame.

The bill would apply only to people 18 and older and, for some inexplicable reason, would not affect any of the sober passengers in the car. The crime would be a Class E misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.

In a Bangor Daily News story Monday, the perplexed Penobscot County district attorney said such a law “would be impossible to enforce, impossible to prove and of absolutely no significant value to law enforcement.”

I think we can take that as an unqualified thumbs down.

Bangor’s Police Chief Don Winslow was equally baffled when he read about the bill. In fact, he could hardly get his law enforcement brain around such an utterly unworkable concept.

“Man, I can see a lot of extra police work in this one,” Winslow said, shaking his head. “I can’t imagine how a provision like this could be enforced.”

If the bill became law, he said, the officer investigating an accident would have to test the sobriety of the driver as well as every passenger that might have been drinking.

“In fact, the only rational passenger in the car, the sober one, is the only one who would not be accountable for persuading the drunk friend to drive,” he said. “I’m not sure I understand that.”

Winslow said the officer would then have to conduct a series of interviews to determine who pressured whom to drive under the influence.

“Trying to sort that out would be like going to a barroom after a fight and trying to figure out what happened from a roomful of drunks,” he said. “That could be difficult.”

Winslow said he also worries that a drunken passenger who knows he’ll be responsible for the actions of the tipsy driver might just decide to take his chances and drive himself home, thereby putting two drunken drivers on the road.

The police chief knows that this bill, like the crosswalk proposal before it, arose from a genuine concern for safety on the part of the legislator or a constituent. In fact, Glynn sponsored the drunken-passenger bill on behalf of the aunt of a young driver now in prison for a car accident that killed three of his Portland High School friends.

“I’ve got to believe that the proposals are well-intended,” said Winslow. “And, if nothing else, they can generate good discussion about important issues, such as the need to resist the pressures to drive after drinking. But, this one really misses the mark.”