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Renton police photo. (Info about this accident available in Renton Patch. Link below.)
As someone in Washington State with both a lifetime career as a transportation safety engineer (33 years), and a city councilmember (28 years), I see the importance of this analysis for the safety of motorists and pedestrians in our state. I have not seen this analysis done by anyone else. Please share this post widely, including with media. For questions I can be reached at 425-271-6913 (please leave a detailed message).
This is the second post of a four-part series covering the ongoing damage from the 2021 police pursuit law. Part one covered skyrocketing highway deaths. Part three will cover the catastrophic crime wave, and part four will cover environmental setbacks from this law.
Washington legislators, stunned by accident rates that are the highest in three decades, are currently considering lowering the blood alcohol content (BAC) standard that defines an assumed Driving Under the Influence (DUI). I’m in favor of greater highway safety and if I was a legislator I might even support this change after all the data and testimony is in.
However, a new DUI standard will not be able to reverse the skyrocketing DUI accident rate by itself. Police will not be able to enforce this rule unless they are allowed to pursue minor traffic violators who fail to pull over.
Why is this? When RCW 10.116.060 was written to limit police pursuits, lawmakers knew that DUIs are responsible for a third to a half of all the highway deaths in our state. So they specifically allowed for the police to still pursue drivers when police had “reasonable suspicion” that drivers were intoxicated. But officers can’t obtain reasonable suspicion if they can’t pull them over for a traffic offense.
Nearly all DUI arrests begin as minor traffic stops, such as speeding, running a red light, or unsafe lane changes. “Reasonable suspicion” of DUI is obtained when the officer speaks with the impaired driver. The officer then looks for clues of intoxication, such as slurred speech, bloodshot eyes, disorientation, and the smell of alcohol to determine reasonable suspicion of DUI. If these clues are present, the officer can insist on a field sobriety test to determine probable cause for an arrest. Without a failed field sobriety test, there will be no blood or breathalyzer test, as regretfully happened in Renton with the most prolific drunk driver in our state.
Since the passing of the RCW, a large and growing number of motorists have been defying the police when signalled to pull over.
This leaves a painfully obvious loophole in our DUI enforcement. A motorist can avoid a DUI arrest by simply hitting the accelerator and speeding away from the police. Police can not give chase for a traffic violation, and they won’t even know who was driving.
It’s popular for lawmakers to say “there’s other ways the police can catch the offender without giving chase,” but this is not true in these cases. Even if the car is (1) properly registered, (2) has a license plate, and (3) not stolen, (which are all increasingly unlikely in the case of the most dangerous drivers), all the police can prove is an unknown driver of that car committed a traffic infraction and then sped away. Proving a DUI is impossible after that, since the blood alcohol of the driver will change over time. If a suspect is somehow confronted later, they could have slept off the intoxication, or simply say “oh, I had several drinks after I arrived home.”
Well, what about trying to prove “eluding a police officer” then? That will be near impossible too, since the driver is unknown. The owner of the car can either choose to say nothing at all (which their lawyer will advise), or pick from a number of other options that will probably also get the case dropped: (1) “I thought you were trying to pull over someone else. When you stopped following me, I was sure it was someone else. (2) “My stereo was loud and I didn’t hear your sirens; my eyes were on the road, so I didn’t see you” (3) “My car was stolen, but I found it later,” or simply (4) “I don’t know who was driving”
At this point, the only option for police would be to apply precious detective resources to try to establish who was driving, and to ascertain and then prove whether actual eluding took place . If no one talks, identifying the driver beyond a reasonable doubt will likely be impossible. Even if detectives do all this work, the prosecutor will question whether it’s worth prosecutor time and the court’s time to try to prove eluding for a driving infraction, especially when they hear how the police never really gave chase. Given the backlog in the prosecutor’s office, no one would expect to see this case go to trial. No traffic stop for an infraction? Boom. No DUI.
Which brings me back to my main point. How does a BAC of 0.05 vs 0.08 help this sad story? It doesn’t. A new standard is not an appreciable change to safety, unless RCW 10.116.060 is revised, as is being debated now in Olympia. Please encourage your legislator to restore police pursuits.
(The story about the cover photo accident can be found here in Renton Patch. )
It seems to me, there are a lot of DUI’s that are not their first DUI offense. I have no statistics on this though.
We need to pursuit these drivers to keep them from going down the road and potentially killing someone or someones. I always thought it was the police officers duty to keep the citizens safe. With their hands being tied by these laws, they can’t do that. I just can’t see where anyone thinks these law are ok.
Thanks Linda. I agree that we are not very good at helping stop repeat DUI offenders.
Thanks Randy for your dedication. I don’t hear much about the effect legalized Marijuana has played on our increased traffic collision/fatality rates. I recall hearing predictions of increased traffic fatalities just before the law passed but those concerns were tamped down in favor of revenues/taxes that was going to be received. I worked with the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission for years. They were instrumental in reducing the fatality rate over the years. All of their efforts and successes appear to have been erased due to poor government/leadership in Olympia.
Your right, how will law enforcement enforce this new ‘feel-good law’ when the tools in their belt have been removed?
Thanks for your common sense view point on the matter.
Thanks Paul!