It’s hardly a revelation that Wisconsinites like to drink. For better or worse — and we’re convinced it’s some of each — drinking has long been ingrained in the culture of the state.

Unfortunately, an oftentimes tragic corollary to Wisconsin’s taste for alcohol has been drunken driving. In 2007, 41 percent of fatal traffic accidents in the state involved a driver with a blood alcohol content at or above the .08 legal limit, third highest in the nation according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.

The problem is fostered in part by ridiculously lax sanctions for those who drive drunk. Unlike every other state in the nation, Wisconsin treats first-time offenses as simply a traffic citation and not a crime. Second-time offenses are part of the criminal code, but they remain misdemeanors until a person’s fifth offense, when drunken driving finally becomes a felony.

Even then, many offenders avoid serious penalty. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently found fewer than half the individuals sentenced for the fifth-time felony in Milwaukee County from 1999 to 2006 went to prison. The reason seems to be the varying sentencing philosophies of judges, with some consistently sending fifth-time offenders to prison and others inclined to let them off with probation.

The Journal Sentinel’s statistics are part of its “Wasted Wisconsin” series, a comprehensive set of articles concluding today that examines the consequences of the state’s drinking culture. It is a revealing series well worth reading.

State legislators should pay particularly close attention to the Journal Sentinel’s findings. It is time — indeed, it is long past time — to criminalize first-time drunken driving offenses. Shifting such cases out of municipal courts would increase court costs for the state, but other states have managed to do it while sending a strong message that driving while intoxicated is not acceptable. Wisconsin additionally needs to make a felony out of third-time drunken driving offenses.

Drunken driving deaths in Wisconsin have declined about 20 percent since the early 1980s. But far more needs to be done. That the state with the highest binge-drinking rate in the nation has such lenient OWI laws is appalling. It needs to change.