OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — A number of bills in the Oklahoma legislature want to further tackle DUI problems, ranging from supporting victims’ families to better prosecuting DUI offenders.
While the number of impaired-driving deaths dropped nationwide and in Oklahoma during the 2010s, state troopers like Russell Callicoat still sometimes face near-death experiences with drunk drivers.
In fact, he had a close call last Saturday. Dash camera video caught a car sliding into the side of his patrol car as he was dealing with another driver on the road shoulder.
“This has happened a lot to me,” Callicoat, who's also an impaired driving liaison for the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office, told 2 News Oklahoma.
“I got struck last April by a young lady on [Interstate] 244. She was texting on her phone, and she hit the back of my patrol car while I was in it," he recalled. "And then, a few years before that, I was arresting a drunk driver on the same road, and I got hit by another drunk driver.”
The troopers patrolling the roads are not the only ones affected by DUI crashes. It’s also the children of victims.
And so, one bill wants to support those children.
If children lose one or both of their parents in a impaired-driving crash, House Bill 2130 wants to make sure that the driver responsible for it pays child support.
One official from the advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) told us this bill should not only be used as a prevention tactic — but also a support tactic.
This is "to make sure that the most vulnerable among us who are impacted by drunk and drug driving are taken care of," said Jerod Breit — MADD's executive director for the Heartland region — adding that these children "shouldn't have to pay the price that their parents, parent, or guardian paid with a 100% preventable crime."
Specifically, the bill would let the court order the driver to pay support to each of the victim’s children.
That’s until each child reaches 18 years old and graduates from high school.
House Bill 2130 mimics similar laws passed in a growing number of states and even other countries.
Breit, who used to work in law enforcement, said taking care of a child after losing parents can be a burden for other family members and the state — especially considering those children without parents, guardians, or even family.
“Someone made the choice to drive impaired," he emphasized, "and the result of that will have lasting impacts on children — even more impact on those who have no support system or financial system to help them grow up in a healthy environment.”
As for how much child support the driver would pay, that would be up to the court to determine.
House Bill 3960 would remove the probation exception for felony DUI’s, applying probation consistently across all felonies.
Senate Bill 1818, also called the Marissa Murrow Act, would establish event venue licenses, banning bartenders and staff from serving alcohol at event venues without said license.
The purpose of this one is to prevent situations where may drivers leave an event after drinking a few.
Although, some event venues would be exempt from this new license.
House Bill 3220 would require repeat DUI offenders to appear before a judge before police can release them. This is so that the judge can conduct a threat assessment of the arrested driver.
Lastly, House Bill 2151 — or the Drunk Impaired Accountability Law (DIAL) — would pave the way for creating an mobile phone application that law enforcement can use to track the phones of convicted DUI offenders.
The bill states the application would allow "for information relating to the individual's real-time and past location to be available to any state or municipal law enforcement agency personnel," among other caveats.
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