South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Today, Governor Mark Sanford held a press conference with members of the law enforcement community and advocates for a stronger DUI law to talk about the new measure that take effect tomorrow, February 10, at noon.

The following is the press conference in its entirety split up into two parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Here are some facts/statistics from a fact sheet handed out at the press conference:

Fact Sheet

South Carolina’s New DUI Law

South Carolina’s new DUI law will go into effect at noon Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009. Among other things, the new law will:

• Apply higher penalties for convictions. The new law provides harsher punishments depending on the amount of alcohol consumed - the higher the blood concentration level, the stiffer the penalty. Repeat offenders also face longer periods of imprisonment and larger fines.
• Close the Miranda warning loophole. The new law removes requirement of an officer reading a DUI suspect his or her Miranda rights three times. Under the new law, the officer only has to read the warning once upon arrest.
• Have a stronger breath-test refusal penalty. A suspect will have his or her driver’s license suspended for six month, instead of three, for refusing a breath test.
• Require counseling. Convicted drunk drivers, including firs-time offenders, must successfully complete an alcohol and drug treatment program.

Statistics

Drunk driving continues to take a heavy toll in South Carolina. Even with a drop in overall traffic fatalities in 2008 compared to 2007, the number of people killed in DUI-related crashes remained nearly the same.

• DUI deaths: Preliminary numbers for 2008 show that 461 people - or about 50 percent of the 914 people killed in traffic collisions - were involved in DUI-related collisions. In 2007, alcohol-impaired driving resulted in 463 - or 43 percent - of the 1,077 motor vehicle deaths.

Source: SC Department of Public Safety