Stricter DUI Laws for Wyoming

Friday, May 29th, 2009

The Senate Judiciary Committee in Wyoming rejected a comprehensive bill that would have created stricter penalties for DUI. Fortunately, even if Governor’s Council on Impaired Driving has been working on this effort for six years, they have not given up the fight yet.

Last week, the council held a conference in Casper and developed legislative proposals for their lawmakers to consider next year. The hurdle for these measures were placed pretty high because it’s budget season and non-budget bills would require at least two thirds vote to be introduced – so the hurdle has been placed high. In addition, the same senators who opposed the bill is still in office.

Here are five recommendations of the council (in this year’s legislation, the first three were included):

• -Make it illegal to have .08 BAC (blood-alcohol content) while driving if the test was done within two hours of being stopped.
• -Create an offense of “aggravated DUI” for people driving with .15 BAC or greater.
• -Increase jail time and the fourth offense should result in felony conviction and five years in prison.
• -Give a mandatory alcohol or drug assessment and a maximum fine of $750 even for the first DUI offense of a person with a minor inside the vehicle. The second offense in this case would have to be fined up to $5,000.
• -Include in DUI law any psychoactive or drug substance that causes a person to be impaired.

Tags: BAC, Casper, dui, Governor's Council on Impaired Driving, law, Senate Judiciary Committee, Wyoming
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