Law: Is the Party Finally Over?

Crackdown on drunken drivers raises hopes—and doubts

In a current series of advertisements, F. Lee Bailey has been speaking up for the quality of his favorite vodka. Last week the noted Boston attorney found himself speaking instead for the quality of his sobriety and doing it in an unfamiliar place: the witness stand. On trial for drunken driving in San Francisco, Bailey faced a vigorous prosecution featuring seven police witnesses. Such cases usually take three days; Bailey's is in its third week. Fumed the defendant: "It's being tried like a murder case. It's a cause celebre." The hardball prosecution is one example—though an extreme one—of society's lost patience with drunken drivers and the increasingly rough treatment they now face from California to Minnesota to Maine. Says a police official in North Attleborough, Mass.: "The party's over."

If so, it would be a remarkable achievement, for the toll exacted by drunken drivers has been numbingly consistent over the years. In an average week, nearly 500 Americans die in alcohol-related auto accidents; 20,000 more are injured. The light legal penalties and the high public tolerance for that carnage may now be ending. Last week the Reagan Administration announced the formation of a 30-member commission to coordinate anti-drunken driving efforts and focus public attention on the problem.

The commission will hardly be breaking new ground. Outraged families of victims, organized in groups like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD), have doggedly lobbied to produce tough new statutes in half the states over the past year. Under a bill passed by Florida's legislature, a first conviction would bring a minimum fine of $250, plus 50 hours of required community service and a six-month loss of license. For a second offense, the minimum penalties would jump to $500 and ten days in jail. To step up the rate of conviction, many states have made a blood-alcohol level of .10% in drivers a crime in itself, rather than merely evidence of intoxication that must be buttressed by other proof. (To score .10%, a 160-lb. man would have to consume 5½ beers on an empty stomach in 90 minutes.) Even the judiciary, often criticized for being too lenient with drunken drivers, is becoming stern. Judges in Quincy, Mass., have agreed to put every first offender in jail for three days.

The courtroom is not the only place where drunken driving is under attack.

American ingenuity has produced some novel ideas. Police increasingly videotape the slurring and lurching of detained driv ers for use later as evidence. In Los Angeles some second-time offenders have to use a specially equipped car. After turning on the ignition, the driver must maneuver the steering wheel so that a needle moves into the "pass" area on a gauge. In Maine, Beer Distributor Frank Gaziano of South Portland is pushing bar owners to buy breath analyzers. The customer puts 500 in the slot and blows into the machine through a straw; a red light goes on for a score of . 10% or higher.

The new legal crackdown is prompting a predictable legal response. Fearing the escalated penalties, those arrested are more inclined to pay lawyers $600 for a simple defense, or even $6,000 for a trial.