ANY FIRST ALCOHOL-IMPAIRED DRIVING EVENT IS A SIGNIFICANT AND SUBSTANTIAL PREDICTOR OF FUTURE RECIDIVISM

It is a widely held belief among the legislative and judicial branches of state government in the United States that first offenders criminally convicted of violating an alcohol-related traffic law are drivers with a single and isolated alcohol-related event. This finding is inconsistent with published estimates that a person can drive while impaired by alcohol 200 to 2,000 times before being arrested once (1-6). Moreover, some drivers manage to have their records expunged under certain conditions and many state motor vehicle administration (MVA) offices routinely purge driving records after a set number of years. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the typical so-called first offender will have had an extensive history of alcohol-impaired driving by the time he or she makes it into the MVA's record system. The low probability of arrest (much less conviction) for alcohol-impaired driving, the practice of expunging and/or purging driver records, and the leniency with which state legislative and judicial systems handle so-called first offenders warrants a closer look at administrative, criminal, and diversion sanctions and the impact of "disposition sequence" on the deterrence of alcohol-impaired driving. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference, see ITRD Abstract No. E201067.