A national watchdog group says its latest Gallup Poll shows increasing support for stiffer penalties for drunken drivers.
"Most people agree that penalties for driving impaired are too weak for both first-time offenders and repeat offenders," Beckie Brown, president of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, said in a statement. "And this feeling has grown significantly since the first Gallup poll in 1991."MADD was founded in 1980 by Candy Lishtner, whose daughter was killed by a previously convicted drunken driver. The group lobbies for stronger DWI penalties and more education on the issue.
Between 1991 and 1993 the number of respondents favoring tougher punishments for first-time offenders grew by 5 percent. Those in favor of harsher penalties for second offenders grew by 7 percent and for third-time offenders, the number increased by 9 percent.
Overall, 91 percent of the 1993 respondents said they took precautions not to drink and drive, and the number of people using designated drivers rose by 58 percent from 1991.
"People are now designating drivers where a few years before they weren't even thinking about that," said Brown.
MADD said the number of deaths related to DWI have decreased by 37 percent since the group was created, and drunken-driving related deaths declined by 20 percent since the 1991 survey.
The group's legislative "wish list" includes passage of the High Risk Drivers Act that would suspend the driver's license of anyone under 21 caught with a blood-alcohol content of .02 percent or higher.
The group wants the blood alcohol content minimum for arrest to be lowered to .08 percent nationally. The current level in most states is .10 percent.
The group also wants drunken driving cited as a violent crime to be addressed in any national crime bill and for health-care reform to include state incentives for curbing drunken driving.
Brown said her group has an advantage over opponents such as the alcohol and restaurant industry because "we have nothing to gain except saving lives when we talk to Congress."
The yearlong study, financed by State Farm Insurance and the Gallup Foundation, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent.