Frustration over ongoing OWI incidents: 'It is maddening'
BROWN COUNTY, Wis. (WBAY) – Overwhelming frustration.
That might be the best way to describe the reaction from many of you after hearing about all the drunk driving incidents in Brown County in 48 hours.
We first told you Monday that Brown County deputies responded to three wrong way drivers and four crashes, including two fatalities, all believed to involve alcohol and all happening this weekend.
Between the images of a fatal crash and dashcam video of a drunken wrong-way driver on the interstate, outrage poured into our newsroom in the last 24 hours.
These were only a couple of the dozens of comments:
“Would this state do something about drunk drivers already?!”
“…If we didn’t give every drunk driver a tiny slap on the hand maybe people would think twice!”
We took your comments to State Representative Andre Jacque (R-De Pere).
“It is maddening. The anger is justified,” says Jacque, who has spent the last few years working on numerous OWI-related proposals.
With the new legislative session just beginning, Jacque says he is working on a handful of new drunken-driving bills.
“I certainly think we can look at what we do with high number of repeat offenders, but I think we want to look for an intervention point that’s sooner,” he says.
The state has stiffened OWI laws recently, including making 4th offense a felony effective this year, but the majority of big changes in the last decade targeted repeat offenders.
“It doesn’t make any difference if they’re a first offense or fifth offense: They’re drunk and they’re not supposed to be on the roadway, and we’re just as likely to have a first-offense person as a repeat offender,” says Captain Dan Sandberg, head of the patrol division at the Brown County Sheriff’s Office.
Of the serious injury crashes this past weekend, one was a first offense, and two were their third offense.
The wrong way driver in the fog Saturday morning was arrested for his 2nd offense OWI.
Another wrong-way driver stopped on Christmas Eve was cited for first offense.
“Every time somebody drinks and drives, it’s causing a danger, and they don’t have to be an alcoholic to be dangerous to society,” says Sandberg. “I don’t know if there’s a prevailing attitude where people think, ‘Well, I’ve got a freebie before I start worrying about it.'”
He thinks the OWI task forces and extra patrols are helping, but it’s not creating the deterrent he thinks is needed.
Statewide, the percentage of first-offense OWI convictions has barely changed in five years, according to Department of Transportation statistics, holding at about 63 percent of all OWI offenses each year.
Jacque says it’s unlikely the legislature will touch making a first offense a crime, at least now, but he agrees something needs to be done sooner.
“Ideally, you’d like to require some sort of a night in jail or some way to drive it home other than just the traffic ticket,” says Jacque.
But as for one easy solution…
“I think we’re continuing to look for answers,” says Jacque.