Bill would force testing for alcohol in accidents

An important bill, LD 96, is presently before the Maine State Legislature. It has had two public hearings with the Criminal Justice Committee, the latest being a work session that took place Feb. 7. It will soon be going to the floor with a minority in the committee for and a majority opposed. LD 96 requires police to give an alcohol test when there has been “serious bodily injury” in an auto accident. The present legislation leaves it up to the discretion of the police officer to administer such a test.

I have dedicated a good deal of time in the past couple of months to working with Jim Schatz, the representative for Blue Hill and Surry, to enact LD 96. There is no personal gain in this for me and my efforts are entirely voluntary since it is far too late to change what took place two years ago when my wife suffered a head-on collision in Blue Hill. At that time the driver of the other vehicle admitted drinking and also admitted driving on the wrong side of the road but gave as an excuse that he had just returned from Bermuda. No alcohol testing was performed.

During a recent trial in federal court in Bangor, the jury was not allowed to be told the facts since punitive damages could not be sought. As a result my wife and I were left financially worse off than prior to the accident and she now has to face life with a permanent disability while the perpetrator is not held accountable for his actions.

A couple of years prior to my wife’s accident and on the same road, an 18-year-old girl was permanently disabled as the result of an auto accident. Her mother wrote me recently to say: “My daughter was in a car accident in May 2001 in Blue Hill. Even though the driver was intoxicated, the police officer did not perform an alcohol test. My daughter is now permanently disabled and a quadriplegic as a result of the choice of the driver to drink and drive. My daughter was in the ICU in Bangor for six weeks! What we have had to face is horrific! Please, please, please protect families in the future from those who drink and drive while intoxicated! … Pass a bill to make breath or blood tests mandatory at the scene of any accident that involves serious bodily injury.”

At the hearing on LD 96 I read a detailed two-page testimony to the committee from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) which was in strong support of LD 96. The MADD representative noted that many states have passed mandatory BAC testing laws, including New Hampshire and Vermont.

During the working session of the Criminal Justice Committee a representative of the Department of Public Safety and the Maine State Police, who at first had been opposed to LD 96, accepted a revised wording in which “serious bodily injury” was adopted instead of “bodily injury.” But in a somewhat disturbing turn of events, several committee members spoke against any need to change the present law, although one retired police officer on the committee did vote for LD 96. The justification that the majority on the committee (about one-third were absent) gave for arriving at their decision was that my wife’s accident was unique and an exception to normal procedure. Several retired and one active police officer, who were on the committee, maintained that in all their years on active duty they had never seen a case in which there was a lack of alcohol testing under similar circumstances. In response, Rep. Schatz stated that my wife’s accident was not unique and that in his district alone four accidents, including ours, had taken place in the past few years in which alcohol testing had not been administered.

Prior to the committee meeting, I visited our district’s state trooper station and asked the officer to discuss the usual procedures involving serious bodily injuries. Lieutenant Christopher Coleman told me that breathalyzers were considered unreliable so “Field Sobriety Tests” are given, which are largely based on observation. If the officer determines that there is “probable cause” for further action they may take the driver to whatever nearby police station has an breathalyzer unit. Obviously this may take some time and the officer has to make a decision on the spot. My response to the lieutenant was that officers on the scene of an accident cannot know the full extent of the injuries of the victim nor can they know the consequences of their decision making in terms of future judicial action.

According to the Maine State Traffic Division, there were 207 fatalities in 2004 in Maine, of which 75 involved alcohol. In 2006, there were a total of 863 “incapacitating injury crashes,” which averages about 70 per month. Based on these numbers, it does not seem unreasonable to ask law enforcement agencies to give an alcohol test in serious bodily injury cases. I ask all those who agree with LD 96 to call or write their state representative and ask them to support this very important bill.

Hugh Curran of Surry teaches in the Peace Studies Program at the University of Maine.