County Blowing Drunken Drivers Off The Road Prosecutors In Kitsap County To Begin Asking Judges To Order Some Dwi Convicts To Install Breath-Test Devices In Vehicles

Kitsap County is trying a new tactic for keeping drunken drivers off the road: a device that locks up a car’s ignition and won’t release it until the driver has passed an in-car breath test.

Prosecutors, faced with a rising incidence of drunken-driving arrests, think the devices will help them “better protect the public” from intoxicated motorists, deputy prosecutor Jeff Jahns said.

Starting Monday, District Court judges in Kitsap County will be asked to order the devices installed on some convicted drunken drivers’ cars.

It’s the first such venture by a prosecutor’s office in Washington state, said Pat Cary, general manager for Ignition Interlock Systems of Washington Inc., the local branch of a company based in Des Moines, Iowa.

A Snohomish County probation official in Everett is trying out the device with one drunken-driving defendant, said Cary, whose company is marketing the only such device approved for use in the state so far.

“But Kitsap County just grabbed the bull by the horns,” he said.

The device disables the vehicle’s starter until the driver blows into a hand-held receiver. The device analyzes the driver’s breath and if traces of alcohol are detected, keeps the starter locked up.

Once the vehicle is in motion, the device periodically sends a beeping signal to the driver, demanding further breath tests to make sure the motorist doesn’t drink on the road.

The subject would be liable for the $60-per-month cost - which breaks down to about $2 a day, “a little bit less than the cost of a bottle of beer at a bar,” Cary noted Friday, adding that the devices require servicing every 60 days.

Defense attorneys said the machines could be easily circumvented - by having another person blow into the device, for example.

The devices’ readings are less accurate than those from breath-test machines used by police on public roads, leaving them open to challenge in court.

And Kevin Hull, a public defense attorney practicing in Bremerton, said constantly monitoring convicted drunken drivers is excessive. He likened it to monitoring the phone calls of someone convicted of telephone harassment.

“There are certain privacy issues that come about,” Hull said.

But prosecutors said the devices should be installed in the cars of repeat drunken drivers to track backsliding among those under court order not to drink and drive.

“There are some cases where we need to have that extra monitoring capability,” Prosecuting Attorney Russ Hauge said. “Most of the serious fatalities caused by drunk drivers are caused by repeat drunk drivers.”

There were 839 drunken-driving charges in unincorporated Kitsap County last year. Numbers for incorporated areas were not immediately available.

Prosecutors say they’ll seek use of the devices for repeat offenders and for all first offenses where the driver is involved in an accident, refuses a breath test on the road, has a particularly high blood-alcohol level or is under 21.

The device keeps a computerized record of each breath test, which can be provided to probation officers and judges as proof of backsliding.

Similar machines are in use in 17 states, Cary said.

In Hamilton County, Ind., he credited use of the devices with reducing drunken-driving arrests by 22 percent in the two years ending in 1994.

James Docter, a Port Orchard defense attorney, said it would be unfair to use the machines to monitor drunken drivers involved in accidents because the accidents may not be their fault.

He also said the machines would allow the government to monitor people’s private drinking, not just whether they’re a risk behind the wheel.

“Just because somebody is on probation (from a drunken-driving conviction) and has a beer doesn’t mean that person’s a danger to society,” Docter said.