Wisconsin is notorious for our lenient drunken driving laws. We are the only state in the country in which the first offense for operating while intoxicated is not even a misdemeanor. In response to this perceived need to stiffen the penalties for repeat offenders, several members of the state Legislature introduced a proposal earlier this week that would increase the penalties for some third- and all fourth-time offenders to a felony conviction instead of waiting until the fifth offense to make OWI a felony crime.

While this proposal clearly has good intentions behind it (the safety of Wisconsin drivers and passengers), it is more than a little bit misguided. In fact, I not only oppose this new proposal to stiffen our OWI laws, I would fully support decriminalizing drunken driving all together.

Most of you are probably a little taken back by that last statement, but go ahead and read it again: My editors can assure you they haven’t changed anything I wrote. I would be in favor of a complete repeal of Wisconsin’s OWI laws. Not only would the first offense not be a criminal one, neither would the thirteenth.

Now before you go and fire off a letter of outrage to this paper or call Mothers Against Drunk Driving to help organize a rally, hear me out. While it might be true that more stringent drunken driving laws save lives and make people safer, that alone is no justification for enacting a law. If that were the case, then people should support banning all cars, as that would prevent any kind of car accident and make everyone more safe. There is obviously some middle ground between complete disregard for the safety of others and the totalitarian state that would ensue from attempting to make everyone safe from everything. Also, this isn’t to say the sobriety level of a driver could not be taken into account as an aggravating circumstance in another crime.

I’m sure that the most opponents of my opinion will rush to cite some study or other argument as to how severe penalties for drunken drivers lower drunken driving rates and save lives. However, all of these studies will fail to refute my argument because I don’t advocate for any level of penalties for drunken driving laws as these studies compare. No one can be sure how safe our roads would be if OWI laws were repealed completely.

The main argument in favor of OWI laws in the first place is that they deter drunken driving and therefore keep people safe. However, as an innocent driver or passenger on the road, you are endangered by all sorts of bad drivers. Those drivers who are talking on cell phones, texting, tired or simply not paying attention also pose increased risks. Even though being intoxicated might make one a worse driver than other sorts of impediments, the same accident causes the same damage regardless of the cause.

Instead of enforcing a myriad of laws to stop people from driving in all of these conditions, why not penalize people for being unsafe drivers regardless of the cause? If someone can’t drive safely, they still pose a threat to others on the road. Wouldn’t we all be safer if we just penalized those who swerved out of their lane, blew traffic lights or engaged in other traffic law violations that increased the risk of an accident? Is causing an accident because you choose to drive after drinking any worse than causing a similar accident because you were texting? If a driver has a BAC of over the legal limit but could still obey all traffic laws, are they really an unsafe driver?

Even with more stringent OWI laws, there will inevitably be those who choose to break them for whatever reason. Currently, those who know they are intoxicated but still choose to drive somewhere, probably have one thing on their mind: not getting caught. To them this usually means emulating as close to “normal” driving as they can. In other words, they try to drive the speed limit. This might be the most dangerous aspect of all. In a world where drunken driving were legalized, inebriated drivers could account for their lower reaction times by slowing down or even flashing their warning lights as a “Hey, I’m drunk — watch out” signal to other drivers.

Enforcing traffic violations as opposed to bloodstream contents also gives a greater flexibility than the current system. There are some people who can drive safely with BAC’s above the legal limits and others, most likely bad drivers to begin with, who shouldn’t be driving after consuming any alcohol at all. Penalizing actions and lack of ability to drive would give our legal system the flexibility to account for these varying levels of threats posed by all kinds of unsafe drivers.

While those in favor of harsher penalties for repeat OWI offenders might be right when they claim it will make our roads safer, that ought not be the sole criteria for evaluating public policy. The real question ought to be: Should drunken driving even be prohibited in the first place?

Patrick McEwen ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in nuclear engineering.