Gov. OKs $2.6M For DWI Fight

Journal and Wire Report
SANTA FE— Markers that flash red when a driver goes the wrong way on interstate ramps. Beefed up police patrols and checkpoints. Interstate signs every 15 miles with the hot line number to report suspected drunken drivers.
Those were among new anti-DWI initiatives announced Tuesday by Gov. Bill Richardson. Altogether, he approved $2.6 million in new spending to increase enforcement and other measures aimed at deterring drunken driving.
The announcement was made a day before separate sets of anti-DWI recommendations were expected from the governor's own task force and from the outgoing and incoming attorneys general.
The new spending, from existing state and federal funds, dovetails with the task force's focus on beefed-up enforcement, which members have agreed is their highest priority.
That panel was scheduled to decide today which recommendations should be included in a report to the governor due next week.
But Richardson said in a news release he is "impatient when it comes to fighting DWI" and that getting started on initiatives could help avert another tragedy.
He formed the task force in response to a crash on Interstate 25 near Santa Fe last month that killed six, including five members of a Las Vegas, N.M., family and the wrong-way drunken driver. Richardson intends to meet with relatives of victims of the Nov. 11 crash today "to personally express my condolences and hear their ideas," the governor said.
Outgoing Attorney General Patricia Madrid and her successor, Gary King, also planned to announce today their proposals to toughen DWI laws.
Ignition interlock devices, the admissibility of blood alcohol tests in drunken driving prosecutions, and stronger punishment for repeat offenders were expected to be among the items.
A spokeswoman for Madrid said the scheduling of their news conference while the task force is meeting was coincidental.
Under Richardson's plan, solar-powered pavement markers to alert wrong-way drivers on interstate ramps would be tried in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, Doña Ana, Bernalillo, San Juan and McKinley counties. The cost hasn't been determined.
Wrong-way drunken drivers have been responsible for some of New Mexico's worst DWI tragedies.
However, the driver in the Nov. 11 wreck on I-25 just east of Santa Fe that killed six made a U-turn in the northbound lanes to start going in the wrong direction, instead of driving onto the highway on an exit ramp.
Early Saturday, a Santa Fe County sheriff's deputy managed to force another wrong-way driver— Julio Hernandez, 35, of Santa Fe— into the center median on U.S. 84/285 north of Santa Fe, after a truck driver flashed his lights to warn other motorists about Hernandez's Mustang heading north in southbound lanes.
Investigators don't know how Hernandez started driving the wrong way, but believe he probably went the wrong way up an entrance ramp.
Hernandez refused to take sobriety tests but faces charges including aggravated drunken driving after the deputy noted that he had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech and smelled of alcohol.
Also included in Richardson's planned spending, which doesn't require legislative approval, are:

$750,000 to the State Police for more checkpoints and patrols in San Juan, McKinley, Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Doña Ana and Rio Arriba counties, and to increase State Police presence by 25 percent on weekends— a proposal the task force heard.

$500,000 to the Albuquerque Police Department for a "drunkbusters" unit, with APD officers working overtime while full-time officers are hired.

$400,000 to monitor courts in Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, San Juan, McKinley, Doña Ana and Bernalillo counties.

$400,000 for a project to encourage employers to identify alcohol problems and adopt "zero tolerance" policies.

$300,000 to Santa Fe County for four full-time DWI law enforcement officers.

$200,000 for public outreach, including signs in the Albuquerque airport to encourage the reporting of deplaning passengers who are drunk and might drive home. The driver in last month's interstate crash had been drinking on a flight and other passengers said he was intoxicated.

$70,000 for new signs every 15 miles on Interstates 10, 25 and 40, and new signs on U.S. 285, with the hot line number to report drunken drivers.
Richardson also said he will ask cell phone companies to program the hot line into phones they sell.
And he said Bernalillo County's Metro Court will get online access to the Motor Vehicle Division's registration data base, so that convicted drunken drivers can't dodge required ignition interlocks by falsely claiming they don't have cars.