Melanie's Story

A first-hand story from the grandfather of 13-year-old victim Melanie Powell
Memories of Melanie: A photo slideshow

STORIES

State ranked among the worst in nation
Quincy judge was among first to take a hard line

GRAPHICS

PART 1
TIMELINE: How Massachusetts drunken driving law has changed
Alcohol's causes and effects
How local and state courts treat repeat drunken drivers
Busiest courts in state for drunken driving arraignments

PART 2
The cost of drunken driving

PART 3
Massachusetts fails compared with other states
Death toll from drunken driving

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Losing out: Failure to act on drunken drivers costs state

For the fourth straight year, state lawmakers lost the chance to use millions in federal highway dollars for road repairs because they failed to pass legislation targeting chronic drunken drivers.

Instead, the money must be diverted to the Governor’s Highway Safety Bureau, which uses the cash for education and safe-driving promotions.

“The state’s infrastructure is being penalized because the Legislature is not acting on this measure,” said Jon Carlisle, a spokesman for Secretary of Transportation Daniel A. Grabauskas, who supported the bill. “The benefits of this are clear, from the infrastructure perspective to the public safety perspective.”

Each year, the federal government dangles highway funds as a reward to states that enact tougher drunken-driving laws.

Lawmakers had until today, the start of the federal fiscal year, to get a repeat offender law on the books. Their failure to do so will cost the state the chance to use $8.4 million to repair roads and bridges.

Over the past four years – the federal mandate began in 2001 – the commonwealth’s highway department has lost about $23 million that could have been spent to repairing the state’s 550 structurally deficient bridges.

Lawmakers came close to passing a a repeat offender bill when they were in formal session over the summer.

A measure sponsored by state Rep. James Vallee, D-Franklin, would have extended license suspensions for repeat offenders from one year to 18 months and barred them from receiving a hardship license from the Registry of Motor Vehicles for at least a year.

Offenders can now apply for a hardship license, which allows the holder to drive to work or school, after six months.

Although both the House and Senate passed the bill, it never gained final legislative approval by the end of the formal session in August.

Lawmakers could have passed the bill in an informal session, which would have required an unanimous vote, but they never took up the measure.

“More upsetting than the unfortunate transfer of federal funds from MassHighway to the governor’s highway safety bureau is the potential loss of life because this bill was not enacted into law,” said state Sen. Brian Joyce, D-Milton, who supported the measure.

The bill was also supported by Gov. Mitt Romney and advocates of tougher drunken driving laws, such as Mothers Against Drunken Driving.

“The Legislature has shortchanged the public again,” said Barbara Harrington, executive director of MADD’s Massachusetts chapter.

The state is “losing millions of dollars needlessly, and three in 10 Americans will be involved in a drunk-driving crash at some time in their lives. People who care about controlling drunk driving need to let their legislators know they want to see action.”

Vallee’s bill also would have made drug and alcohol testing, along with treatment, a mandatory condition of probation for repeat offenders.

It would also have required offenders driving with hardship licenses to install ignition locking devices on their cars.

The driver of a car must breathe into the device before he or she can start the car. If the machine detects alcohol, the car won’t start.

Similar measures are already in place in a number of other states, including Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

The Legislature also failed to act on a law that would have toughened penalties for people who drive drunk with a child in the car.

Lawmakers also failed to pass a primary seat belt law – making not wearing a seat belt a condition under which police can pull a driver over – which has shown to dramatically reduce fatalities in other states.

In 2002, the last year for which complete statistics are available, there were 221 drunken-driving deaths in the commonwealth.

Forty-eight percent of all driving fatalities were alcohol-related, the fifth highest rate in the country.

Dan DeLeo may be reached by clicking here