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A Daily Herald investigation: Repeat drunken driving in lllinois
The newspaper analyzed complete public driving records for anyone who received more than one drunken driving conviction or court action between 1996 and 1999.
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About DUI in Illinois |
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Hard-core offenders
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Hard Facts
• About 50,000 drivers are charged with driving intoxicated in Illinois annually.
• 20% of the 50,000 are repeat offenders, compared to 30% to 33% nationally. The 20% are involved in 25% of alcohol-related fatal crashes. The 80% who are first-time offenders are involved in 75% of alcohol-related fatal crashes.
Hidden danger
According to the American Medical Association, current estimates of the likelihood that a drunken driver will be arrested for DUI range from 1 in 250 to about 1 in 2,000.
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• 185,049 drivers have logged more than one drunken driving court action since such data-keeping began decades ago.
• Drivers convicted of a 4th DUI after Jan. 1, 1999, will have their license permanently revoked. To date, 284 drivers have had licenses permanently revoked.
• Most of those charged with drunken driving as a first offense are found guilty but are given court supervision, unless they were involved in a serious accident causing injury or death. Supervision is not considered a conviction by courts.
That supervision is suppressed from public records, but kept on private legal records. In 1997, Illinois law was changed so that drivers may receive only one supervision for driving drunk in their lifetimes.
Supervision isn't handled uniformly throughout county courts in Illinois, anti-drunken driving activists say.
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About DUI nationally |
Every weekday night from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., one in 13 drivers is drunk (BAC of .08 or more).
Between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. on weekend mornings, one in seven drivers is drunk.
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Hard facts
• 15,935 people were killed in alcohol-related traffic crashes - an average of one every 33 minutes. These constituted approximately 38.4% of the 41,471 total traffic fatalities.
• About 630,000 were injured in alcohol-related crashes - an average of one person injured approximately every minute. About 30,000 people a year will suffer permanent work-related disabilities.
Constant danger
In 1998, there were nearly 2 alcohol-related traffic deaths per hour, 44 per day and 306 per week. That is the equivalent of 2 jetliners crashing week after week. (NHTSA, 1999)
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• About three in every 10 Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives.
• Since 1982, annual alcohol-related traffic deaths have been reduced by 37%. (NHTSA, 1999) NHTSA estimates that between 90,307 and 128,520 lives have been saved between 1983 and 1996 due to the decrease in alcohol involvement in fatal crashes in the United States.
• More Americans have died in alcohol-related crashes than in all the wars with United States involvement.
• Drunken driving is the nation's most frequently committed violent crime.
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Source: A Daily Herald analysis of Secretary of State public driving records for people with multiple DUI convictions and court dispositions from 1996 through 1998. Drivers with multiple DUI convictions who did not receive them during that time period are not included in this analysis. Some percentages are rounded. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, American Medical Association, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
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