Personal Injury Lawyers > Personal Injury Blog > Drunk Driving Accidents > California Auto Accident Lawyers Support New Bill to Prevent Repeat DUI Offences

Personal Injury Blog

California Auto Accident Lawyers Support New Bill to Prevent Repeat DUI Offences

One of the biggest frustrations for California drunk driving accident lawyers has been the fact that DUI offenders are so easily able to escape license suspensions and revocations. Under current laws, the DMV can only make the decision to suspend or revoke licenses based on the person’s drunk driving convictions over the past decade. A license can only be revoked if the person has been involved in a series of fatal accidents while driving in an impaired condition. Now, a California legislator is proposing a new bill that will give a judge the power to revoke licenses of DUI offenders after 3 convictions.

The bill will be unveiled next week by Assemblyman Jerry Hill D-San Mateo. Under the bill, there will be two standards-

1. Judges will be given the power to permanently revoke a motorist’s license after 3 DUI offences.
2. The Department of Motor Vehicles would be allowed to take into consideration a motorist’s drunk driving history while making a decision to revoke or suspend a license.

According to Assemblyman Hill, he was encouraged to develop this bill after he read a series of reports on the problem of repeat drunk drivers published by the Bay Area News Group. These stories related to motorists who were able to get their licenses back after as many 8 DUI convictions. California drunk driving accident lawyers, prosecutors and legislators all agree on one simple fact – our state laws can be soft on drunk driving offenders, and make it too easy for these DUI offenders to be driving again.

According to statistics from the Department of Motor Vehicles

1. A total of 34,145 motorists in California had three or more drunk driving convictions.  Those figures are true as of 2006, which is the most recent year for which statistics are available.
2. Besides this, 6,504 California motorists had four or more drunk driving convictions.
3. 154,337 motorist had two drunk driving offences on their record.
4. The DMV records have some more statistics that will be of great concern to California auto accident lawyers. They show that the higher the number of DUI’s a motorist has on his record, the more likely he is to be arrested again.

The Bay Area News Group reports focused in particular on 42-year-old William Simon who was sentenced for his 9^th drunk driving offense in October. This is probably the highest number of DUI offences by a single motorist in California.  His blood alcohol level in his last offence was at .22, which is close to three times the legally allowed limit of .08. However, because Simon has never been in a serious fatal accident where he had killed or injured anyone, and because these arrests were spread out over a 24 year period, he was able to get his license back over and over again.

The bill has its critics, not so surprisingly, in DUI lawyers in the state who believe that the law will only lead to unlicensed motorists driving and likely being involved in accidents. As California car accident attorneys and strong advocates of stricter action against DUI, we believe that the bill has great potential to curb repeat drunk driving.

The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims, including victims of drunk driving accidents. Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us.

The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.

---