A bill known as the "breathalyzer bill" heads to Georgia's Senate floor Friday, spearheaded in part by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. It's strongly opposed by the American Beverage Institute which represents hundreds of Georgia restaurants.
"What you're doing is you're creating a very expensive, blanket one-size-fits-all penalty that doesn't really get after those hard-core of those drunk drivers that are causing fatalities on a highway," said Sarah Longwell, managing director at ABI.
One such DUI fatality happened in Columbus in 2007 when Thomas Lewis was walking with a friend at 5:30 a.m. and was hit by a first-time offender.
Lewis was about to be a father. His son, Isaiah Thomas Owens, was born 17 days later.
"He would have never wanted me to go through that alone but i'm sure he was watching," said Niya Owens, Lewis' fiancee.
Owens juggles parenting her three-year-old son, getting her Master's at Columbus State and volunteering for MADD.
"Just because they're a first-time offender by record that doesn't mean that this is their first time driving drunk," Owens said.
In fact, MADD estimates that a first-time offender by record has actually driven under the influence more than 80 times before.
A representative from MADD says in the dozen other states where such all-encompassing ignition interlock bills have passed, DUI fatalities have gone done 30 to 46 percent. By conservative estimates, that would mean about 100 Georgia lives saved each year.
Longwell says those statistics are inaccurate. She says MADD funded a study that assessed DUI fatalities in New Mexico, formerly one of the worst states for such deaths.* New Mexico underwent a variety of anti-DUI measures, not just a breathalyzer bill, which may be responsible for the decline in numbers.
Owens says the law is about holding convicted offenders accountable and that one woman's decision to drive drunk has changed her life forever.
"I have to make special arrangements for everything," Owens said. "Things that, you know, his father could be doing. You know, watch him while I take a shower, watch him while I go to school for two hours. It's simple things."
*Editor's note: MADD disputes the claim that it funded the New Mexico study.
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