Maine tops category in AAA report

AUGUSTA – Unlicensed drivers who cause accidents on Maine’s highways are in lawmakers’ sights, but one study shows that Maine has a good record on fatalities involving unlicensed drivers.

A 2000 report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington says that about 20 percent of all fatal crashes in the United States from 1993 and to 1999 involved at least one driver who did not have a valid license.

The report, titled “Unlicensed to Kill,” also cites a wide variation among the states in the proportion of drivers in fatal crashes who did not have valid licenses. Maine was lowest at 6 percent, while New Mexico was the highest at 23 percent.

New Hampshire ranked third-lowest in the nation, at around 7 percent, while Vermont ranked 34th at about 14 percent.

The AAA report was updated in 2003 with a focus on what states are doing to keep drivers with suspended licenses from getting behind the wheel.

Action in Maine was prompted by an accident last July in which a rig driven by a trucker with a long record of suspensions and other driving offenses slammed into a car. The collision on the Maine Turnpike in Hallowell resulted in the death of a Tina Turcotte of Scarborough.

Legislation in Maine that has become known as Tina’s Law calls for impoundment of vehicles of those caught driving after suspension and upgrading of penalties for those who are caught driving after suspension, then get into accidents causing injuries or death.

The driving record of the truck driver in the July accident, which includes 63 convictions, 23 license suspensions and involvement in a 1994 fatality, has sparked public outrage. The trucker, Scott Hewitt, has been charged with manslaughter in Turcotte’s death.

In the meantime, supporters of legislation to bolster Maine’s law to get unlicensed drivers off the road have sought to quantify the depth of the problem with multiple tables of arrest figures and estimates. Families and friends of victims played down the figures as they told their gut-wrenching stories this week.

Rep. Elaine Makas, D-Lewiston, told the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee of an 18-year-old neighbor, Mark Blanchette, who was walking home from his summer job when he was struck by a car driven by a man who was drunk and driving with a suspended license. Blanchette died a day after being struck nearly 10 years ago.

“Something needs to be done,” Makas said. A tougher law “may prevent one tragedy, and maybe one is enough to make this legislation worthwhile … one nightmare that does not have to happen.”

Maine motor vehicle officials estimate that around 4 percent of the state’s drivers have had their operating privileges suspended between five and nine times.