Drunk-driving Laws

The first drunk-driving law was passed in New York in 1910, followed by laws against drunk driving enacted in California in 1911 and many other states thereafter. Today all states have laws against driving while intoxicated. According to Robert H. Voas and John H. Lacey in their paper on impaired-driving laws in the United States, the issue of drunk driving was first recognized in 1904, about five years after the first highway fatality.

Voas and Lacey say that by 1924, Connecticut was jailing about 254 drivers per year for driving while intoxicated (DWI).

In the early years of laws against drunk driving, there were no means provided to police officials on how to determine whether individuals were drunk, because there were no blood tests for alcohol abuse nor were there breath tests or any other means to verify intoxication. As a result, the police officer had to decide for himself whether the person was sufficiently intoxicated to be arrested.

General judgment and field sobriety tests were used; for example, common symptoms of intoxication are slurred speech, flushed face, and a staggering gait. Field sobriety tests involve asking the driver to get out of the car and walk a straight line, touch his or her nose with the eyes closed, and so forth. These tasks, much easier to perform when a person is sober, are far more difficult to achieve when an individual is intoxicated.

Voas and Lacey say that just prior to World War II, chemical tests to measure intoxication, such as blood alcohol tests, were first introduced in the United States. Indiana was the first state to provide for chemical tests in 1939 and Maine, New York, and Oregon soon followed with state laws on blood alcohol levels. The first tests considered a blood alcohol level of 0.15 to be proof of intoxication, which is nearly twice the level of legal intoxication used in the 21st century, or a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level of 0.08. Lower levels of a BAC were also considered intoxication but only if accompanied by supporting verbal testimony.

By the mid-1970s, roadside breath tests were available to police departments, making the verification of intoxication much faster and easier. The Alco-Sensor was the first breath test to be used in the United States. More advanced breath tests were subsequently developed. In later years, the alcohol interlock safety device was developed, and some states required its use by drivers convicted of driving under the influence. The interlock safety device requires the driver to blow into a device in order to start their car. If alcohol is present, the car ignition will remain locked.

However, for many years, there were few penalties for drunk driving. This all changed with the development of the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), created by two mothers, including Candy Lightner in Sacramento, California, after a drunk driver killed her daughter Cari, age 13, and received a penalty of only two years in prison after pleading guilty. Lightner, along with another mother, Cindy Lamb of Maryland, whose five-and-a-half-month-old daughter, Laura, was left paraplegic after a drunk driver hit their car, began the organization to publicize their plight.