introduction to the drunk driver

Drunk driving (DD) is a staggering public health problem and an economic cost for society. Attempts to reduce DD combine legal sanctions – fines, license actions, electronic monitoring or house arrests, ignition interlock devices, and jail sentences – and treatment or interventions. When drunk drivers mostly enter counseling as mandated, and with poor motivation for treatment, a challenging point of departure in treatment is created (DeLeon & Jainchill, 1986; Dill & Wells-Parker, 2006; Fine, Scoles & Mulligan, 1975). When adjudicated to treatment, due to particular social rule infraction, DD clients are explicitly positioned in relation to the system of social institutions, and become accountable to others for their own actions (Barnes, 2000). Activities initiated by societal institutions, then, become essential triggers and externalized determinants of the client's problem construction. Usually people are aware of a disturbed or lost sense of agency when they enter conversational treatments (Anderson & Goolishian, 1992; Wahlström, 2006a, 2006b). In DD offenders' mandated counseling this starting point typically lacks. In mandatory interventions the client's change process is initiated and regulated by external contingencies (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan, Plant & O'Malley, 1995). Judicial systems adjudicate the client to change his/her behavior and the treatment programs provided define how the change is about to occur. Depending on the frame of reference of interventions, DD offenders will be viewed as potential clients whose untoward actions are due to, e.g., a lack of knowledge, an irresponsible attitude, a lack of motivation to drive sober, or an underlying psychological problem of addiction (Cavaiola & Wuth, 2002). The clients' motivation for change is somehow prescribed. The question of (or rather, lack of) autonomous motivation in the treatment of DD offenders has gained increasing attention among researchers (Donovan, Marlatt & Salzberg, 1983.

3 Veneziano & Veneziano, 1992; Wells-Parker, Dill, Williams, & Stoduto, 2006). Use of motivational enhancement techniques – e.g., the Motivational Interview (Miller, 1983; Miller & Rollnick, 1991) – has been found to improve DD offenders' treatment satisfaction and retention in outpatient treatment programs (Brown, et al., 2010; Nochasjski, Stasiewiecz, & Gonzalez; 2000; Stein & Lebeau-Craven, 2002). The stage model of the change process (Mackrill, 2009; Miller & Rollnick, 1991; Prochaska & DiClemente, 2005; Stiles et al., 1990) approaches the clients' formulations of problem stories as indications of his or her motivational readiness to tackle the problem. The stage model indicates that at the outset of treatment, clients are often not ready to contemplate change, and professionals are recommended in those cases to avoid too eager attempts to engage the client in change-promoting activities. Issues concerning motivation become accentuated in narrative counseling approaches, where clients are expected to participate as motivated storytellers whose storied accounts of their situation form the point of departure for treatment (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995; McLeod, 1997; McLeod & Lynch, 2000; Rennie, 1994; Wahlström, 2006b). Narrative approaches have also been applied in studies of alcohol-related problems (Halonen, 2006; Hänninen & Koski- Jännes, 1999; Hänninen & Koski-Jännes, 2004; Larkin & Griffiths, 2002), and have been found to bear both clinical use and scientific relevance on how alcoholism, addiction and recovery can be conceptualized (Bateson, 1973; Glatt, 1958; Jellinek, 1960). Still, stories told by DD offenders in counseling and as a part of legal sanction, have been studied only in one case study where DD offender-clients' different narrative agency construction processes were demonstrated (Pulkkinen & Aaltonen, 2003). The focus of this study is in what and how offenders, when afforded the possibility, tell about their DD at the outset of counseling. Looking at how such stories are formulated can open new perspectives on DD offenders' problem constructions and motivation for change. Following ideas of earlier research on narratives in therapeutic settings (Goncalves & Machado, 1999 4 Guignon, 1998; Holma & Aaltonen, 1997; McLeod, 1997; Wahlström, 2006b), the aim of the study is to describe how DD offenders construct and display their agency in such stories. The starting point is that a client's agency is being constructed in the act of narrating as he or she orders events and attributes meanings to them (White & Epston, 1992). When analyzing displays of agency it is crucial to notice that when telling a story the speaker is simultaneously in the positions of story protagonist and narrator. In these two positions the client displays him- or herself both as an instigator and author of his or her actions in the events, and as the author of the story in the counseling situation; thus, two different agentic positions are established. In the position of protagonist, the self is portrayed as a main character and an agent that relates the situations and events on the story scene. The narration is usually filtered through the perspective of the protagonist-agent in the story. The narrated protagonists' position may, however, differ in how subjectivity and agency are displayed. In the position of a narrator, again, speakers adopt different positions in relation to how the narrated story is attributed to ownership (subjectivity) and agency (Gallagher, 2003; Gallagher & Marcel, 1999, Lambie & Marcel, 2002), thus constructing their particular quality of authorship and responsibility. The aim of this study is to look at how DD offenders in the early sessions of semi-mandatory counseling construct agency and responsibility when they narrate and attribute meanings to their DD and the events that preceded and led to it. We look in detail at how agency positions are constructed in the stories: firstly, how the protagonists are positioned in the sequence of events, secondly, how positions are taken in the narration itself, and thirdly, how meanings are attributed to events that determine the protagonist-narrators' actions. The agency positions are considered in light of how they express the narrators' quality of subjectivity, authorship, and reflectivity with respect to their DD. The implications of this for counseling practices in DD are discussed 5 Method Data and participants The study data comprises videotaped and transcribed sessions from a five-hour counseling program (FCP) administered to 30 convicted drunk drivers. Their ages ranged from to. The treatment histories? All clients recommended by the local criminal sanctions agency were accepted to participate in the FCP. The clients' prison sentences, less than eight months' time, had been commuted to community service and the clients had voluntarily included the FCP as a part of their community service. All clients who completed the FCP at the Jyväskylä University Psychotherapy Training and Research Centre in Finland were included in the study. The first author, a licensed psychologist, worked as counselor. The five-hour counseling program (FCP) The FCP was implemented in either three or four sessions; the first session lasted two hours for all clients and the subsequent sessions one or one and a half hours. The first two sessions were conversational interviews that aimed at encouraging the client to tell about his or her DD. At the very beginning of the program the counselor explained that the sessions were part of the legal sanctions imposed, and the sessions were introduced as an opportunity for the clients to speak confidentially about the DD. The clients were informed about the circumstantial facts including their right to confidentiality, the required five hours of counseling as a part of community service, and the plan to use data collected from FCP as research material. The recordings and the verbatim transcriptions of each client's first two sessions were used as data in this study. All 30 clients informed consent to their participation in the videotaped counseling sessions and in the study. All analyses were performed on the original Finnish transcripts. At the beginning of the FCP, the counselor attempted to take a neutral stance, and posed open-ended questions to the clients, which encouraged them to talk. The counselor asked the clients to describe their current life situations and about the adjudication to FCP. An atmosphere of interest and respect was created. The sessions were further conducted flexibly with a special focus on the most recent experience of DD, which the clients were invited to narrate. The counselor asked questions which promoted the telling of events preceding the decision to get into the car, to start to drive, of getting caught, and the subsequent events of the drunken driving. Narrative analysis The data collection and the narrative analysis were intertwined, as the counselor was also the researcher. The participation in the FCP produced for her an immediate and experiential relation to the material, and to the reading and conceptual analysis of the transcribed material, a more distant and conceptual relation (Wahlström, 1992). All cases were analyzed according to the following methodological rules and procedures: 1. The analysis of the data began with viewing all the videotaped sessions of the 30 clients and reviewing their transcriptions. 2. The narration detailing the last DD in each client's interviews during the first two counseling sessions was selected and extracted, and then imported into Atlas.ti®, a software package for qualitative data analysis. Each case was handled as an individual primary 7 3. The selected texts were parsed and categorized using three episode-codes and one evaluative code. The episode-codes were applied according to the topical themes of the text: 1. Events preceding the decision to get into the car; 2. the actual driving; and 3. getting caught and the consequent events. The evaluative code was applied when narrators evaluated the protagonists' actions and/or attributed meanings to events that determined his or her acting in the DD. 4. The episode-coded and evaluative-coded text parts were read in detail and further coded according to the quality of description. In the episode-coded text parts, subjectivity and authorship – i.e., how the protagonist presented as a subject and an instigator of his or her action – were used as guiding criteria. In the evaluative-coded text parts, the narrators' evaluative, reflective and/or responsible positioning – or lack of it – was the basis for further coding. 5. These specified codes, following the sequence of events in each case, were used as analytic tools for a condensed reconstruction of each story. This was done by the first author and as a credibility check the second and third author independently reviewed these reconstructions. 6. The condensed reconstructions delimited the narrative and its constitutive parts and made the large material of cases comparable. On the basis of similarities and differences in agency positions and meaning attributions, the reconstructed stories were categorized into five agency story types, which were named according to the protagonist-narrators' agencyResults Five types of displays of agency in the DD stories were found. They are referred to as 'agency story types' and labeled according to the quality of agency displayed. In the presentation of each story type the prominent subject and agent positions taken during the narration are highlighted. The meaning of DD and agency positions in regard to responsibility is evaluated. The story types are presented in the order of frequency of the cases. Because of space restrictions only five excerpts from the data of are given. The excerpts illuminate different agency story types. Unconcerned agency (n=11, all male) Narrator and protagonist positions DD was told as a practical, acceptable solution for the protagonist-narrators' problems of everyday life. The narrators either reported the events and protagonist's acting as though they were mundane and recurrent or they depicted them in a highly subjective manner. Whether the narration was detached from the experiential level or there was a high level of involvement in subjective recollecting, the narrators positioned themselves as mere tellers of the events and the protagonists' action. They depicted events in details or the protagonists' means of actions, but did not evaluate or reflect upon them. The few evaluations presented in the stories concerned thought and action processes depicted as matters of facts that lead to 'the unavoidable' decision to drive while drunk. In some cases the narrators positioned the drunk-driving protagonist as a strong and capable agent. In case the social violation was brought up, this was done in isolated statements that bore no relation to the 10 The stories in this category positioned the protagonist as an intentional agent, for whom DD was a mundane way of moving or acting in everyday situations. DD was neither evaluated nor reflected on as a matter of personal conduct and offense. The narrators accounted for the events and their actions as intelligible and meaningful in the sphere of their private lives, but did not consider them from the perspective of the larger social and moral order. This telling of DD as a practical, acceptable solution for problems of everyday life displayed unconcerned agency and neglect of responsibility for social violation. The clients did not relate to counseling as a possible resource for dealing with personal problems. Weak agency (n=8, 6 male and 2 female) Narrator and protagonist positions DD was narrated as an intentional agentive act and a solution to meaningful interpersonal situations. The stories were told with high subjective involvement. The narrators' subjective recollections portrayed the protagonists as troubled, weak agents. The narrators told their DD stories in wavering positions of subjective recollection and evaluation. Subjectivity was expressed intensely and the experiential quality of the events was reproduced in narration. The narrators' evaluative action was unproductive in the sense that DD was evaluated as a sign and verification of weakness or illness and no other perspectives were taken. A reflective stance toward DD was not achieved. The DD was depicted as something that happened to the narrator. Excerpt 2 illustrates reproduction of weak, problematic agency in the evaluative narrating of one narrator.

11 Excerpt 2 (Cl 3) I have, I have imagined that it- that there was someone else driving the car. And that fate just had to arrange that for me. That it, in this way, ended the situation [refers to his general difficulties in life]. And then I considered myself as ill. (…) So, there should be treatment immediately there. The narrator distanced himself from personal DD by 'imagining' how DD happened to him. In the phrases 'someone else was driving', 'fate arranged this for me', and 'I considered myself as ill' he concretely positions DD outside his own agency. However, DD has a meaning, and an important one for the narrator. DD was a meaningful event, a rescue and a solution to a long-continued, gradual loss of sense of agency, which allowed the protagonist to give up responsibilities and duties in his life that he had experienced as overwhelming, and to put himself in a position of being concretely dependent on others. Constructed agency position The narrators in this category detached themselves from the weak protagonists and concretely positioned DD outside their agency, which evaded control and responsibility. DD had for the protagonists a meaning, and even an important one in terms of confirming the protagonists' weak agency. The narrators evaluations of personal agency as 'problematic' and 'lost' were related to general, personal problem stories and in this respect the narrators seemed to be seeking help in counselling, though not with respect to the DD. Egotistical agency (n=5, all male) Narrator and protagonist positions 15 None of the narrators saw themselves as a drunk driver. The narrators actively warded off the notion of the protagonist as a drunken driver by putting a lot of effort into finding an explanation and causes for the not-acknowledged intoxication, or constructing DD as acting without awareness. The first narrator depicted the protagonist as an object who was observed and instigated by other people. The filter of consciousness of the protagonist was externalized outside the self. The second narrator portrayed the protagonist as operating unaware of doing things that are not appropriate or suitable throughout the story. The protagonist not only went driving while drunk, but also drank more while driving. In the situation of getting caught, the protagonist tried to flee from the scene, because he in incomprehensible ways felt threat of violence targeted at him. The third narrator depicted himself as a not-intoxicated driver and persistently argued for it. He did not believe the result of the breath analysis test was valid and waited for the results of blood tests to confirm his own sense of being sober. After verification of the intoxication from the blood test, the protagonist still did not accept his DD. He went to a doctor to check if his liver was functioning properly, and received no evidence to the contrary. He was persistent and did not give up his sense of being sober and had one more explanation for the presence of alcohol in blood (see Excerpt 5). Excerpt 5 (Cl) Well, there is one such thing that I've heard– that something like that could also happen, that it [the alcohol] can be stuck in your bowel. I once had a blockage in my bowel so that the bowel was completely jammed. So there could have been that same kind of symptom that the stuff [the alcohol] has stayed in the bowel. And in the morning you drink water and then the stuff starts to move. And then it goes into the blood circulation again. Constructed agency position 16 The narrators in this category constructed DD as a not-acknowledged experience. The protagonist as a subject of DD was missing from the stories. The narrators did not deny DD as an act conducted by them, but constructed it as happening without the protagonist's awareness. Hence, there was no evaluation of the protagonist's acts. Responsibility and instigation of action was attributed to someone else, or to forces beyond the protagonist's own control. This narration of DD constructed a disowned agency and evaded all responsibility from the narrating agent. As clients, these narrators used the counseling situation to back up their unalterable version of DD, and their denial of subjective involvement. Discussion Five types of agency displays were identified using narrative analysis of 30 repeat DD offenders' stories of their recent DD offenses, videotaped in counseling sessions. In these different types of displays, the agency of the protagonist-narrator was exhibited as either unconcerned, weak, egotistical, akratic, or disowned. In the discussion of these results first each agency story type is considered from the viewpoint of how they expressed the protagonist-narrators' qualities of subjectivity, authorship and capacity for reflection, as well as ways of assuming or evading responsibility; and secondly, how he/she positioned him-/herself as a client in the mandatory counseling. In the stories displaying unconcerned agency, subjectivity was expressed either as a high level of involvement or as a remarkable detachment. DD was told as a mundane, circumstantially intentional way of acting without evaluative or reflective narration regarding one's own choices of action. The narrators not only approved of DD, but also of being sanctioned for it 17 Social rule violation, accountability for it and the sanctions were inconsequential to the narrators. Neither the DD event nor talking about it in counseling was given evaluated meaning, nor were the actions thereof or its consequences and implications reflected upon. The non-reflective mode of narration positioned the narrators as carefree conversationalists who told what was asked for in the situation, rather than clients in counseling. In the stories displaying weak agency, subjectivity was expressed intensively and the experiential quality of the events remained in the narration. The DD was constructed as a manifestation of personal problems, and this subjectivity remained throughout narration. When evaluating the protagonist as a helpless agent, the narrator – in the position of a detached observer – evaded his/her responsibility for the action. The narrator operated in the position of a willing but weak and unaccountable agent in regard to change. A reflective stance toward DD was not achieved. These narrators produced traditional 'problem stories', in that they related to counseling as if asking for help, but not with respect to the DD. In the stories displaying egotistical agency, the mode of narration was subjectively strong, repeating and even intensifying the original experiential stance. Responsibility for DD, when occurring in a private situation, was owned and evaluated as a consciously taken risk or an error of judgment. When DD turned into a social situation – i.e., the police interrupted the DD and accountability was demanded – responsibility was denied. These private and social subjectivities remained separate and constructed a self-centered and circumstantially changing agency. As clients, the narrators strongly and reactively aimed at defending their egotistical agency and unwillingness to take on social responsibility. In the stories displaying akratic agency, the wavering between subjective and reflective positions in narration constructed an insightful agency in regard to DD. The subjective position of an autonomous and opposing DD agent was reflected in the present as something interpretable. The narrators reflected upon their experience of explanation for their emphasized need to express autonomy and resistance. DD was portrayed as meaningful acting with respect to autonomy needs, but also as acting against the narrators' will. As clients, the narrators with stories displaying akratic agency spontaneously explored the ambivalence regarding their own action. The current interpretations became a resource for new meaning construction and a new sense of agency. Looking at their own relational orientation opened up possibilities for an alternative, more responsible stance. In the stories displaying disowned agency, the lack of subject and agent positions in the narration evaded the narrators from owning the experience of DD, and from any evaluation of or responsibility for their own acting. DD was told as an incident that was instigated by sources outside of the protagonist's control. Since the narrators' problem stories dismissed DD as a personal experience they did not really position themselves as clients in DD offender counseling. Of the 30 total client narrations, 19 lacked subjective and reflective positions which could have contributed to the sense of DD as a personal problem. This finding is in accordance with studies indicating DD clients' low treatment motivation and further argument for some form of compulsory treatment (Fine, Scoles & Mulligan, 1975). The argument for coerced treatment is based on the notion that DD offenders have limited or inadequate internal motivation and consequently need to be externally motivated to enter treatment. There are, however, differing opinions within the field of DD counseling about coerced treatment, and it has been debated whether it is effective at all (Dunham & Mauss, 1982; Fagan & Fagan, 1982). Studies of stories of offenders of other crimes – e.g. violent offenders – have pointed out the nature of the mandatory setting as an invitation for narrators to sustain the position of an irresponsiblefigures as aninvitation for narrators to sustain the position of an irresponsible offender, and, for example, ward off (social) shame by adopting the position of an angry or a helpless agent (Maruna, 2004; Mckendy, 2006). These kinds of 19 The lack of social and moral responsibility was a striking uniform feature in the DD stories in this study. None of the narrators included talk about DD as a problematic behavior that puts others at risk, may cause harms and losses. This finding is in line with observations of DD offenders as unaware and/or inconsiderate of the possible consequences of their acting (Cavaiola & Wuth, 2002). It is surprising that treatment programs and clinical studies have paid so little attention to how coerced treatment addresses the DD offender-client's position as a responsible agent who is accountable to others for risking the life of not only him- or herself, but also the lives of others. Practical implications for counseling In keeping with the narrative approach, the outset stories of DD offenders are considered as a point of departure in the potential change process and agency enhancement (Mackrill, 2009). The quality of telling is viewed as expressing the clients' (problematic) agency positions, readiness for personal change, and motivation to process the problem in counseling. In this study, only three clients from the total of thirty explicitly exhibited autonomous motivation for change in narration. The clients displaying akratic agency processed their activity in DD in change-orienting ways. They constructed DD as a personal problem and began to work with it through counseling. More than as consequences of their unwanted behavior and the possibility to change it, the clients processed understanding of their akratic acting in broader identity stories. The clients' way of constructing agency in a reflecting position proposes suitability for constructive approaches rather than educational interventions. In the collaborative counseling work the understandings of akratic acting should be linked and processed in relation to the current problem and the goal of more responsible agency. The clients displaying weak agency were motivated to "receive" treatment and even requested change, though their own agentic efforts were lacking. Their stories constructed a sense

20 of problematic agency with a need to change, but not in regard to DD. The narrator-agents condemned their own action, but simultaneously represented themselves as protagonists who are incapable to accept responsibility for their own acting. Eliciting clients' concern for their own sense of weak agency and active participation for personal change are essential issues with clients who display themselves in double, conflicting-agency positions (Kurri & Wahlström, 2007). The DD clients displaying unconcerned agency participated in the FCP with no investment in change. Their personal interest in the counseling can be seen as having constituted merely a fulfillment of the legal requirement related to their offense. They seemed primarily motivated to do only what was necessary to get through the program. Their way to participate in the counseling process was basically an act of compliance with judicial sanction. In respect to treatment, they exhibited no autonomous motivation, nor personal effort to change. This was also the case with the clients displaying egotistical and disowned agency. They disclaimed their culpability as agents (and subjects) of DD, and hence did not adopt – but even defended against – a DD-offender-client position in the counseling program. According to notions of the transtheoretical stage-models of change (Prohachaska & DiClemente, 2005; Prochaska & Norcross 2010; Stiles, et al., 1990), professionals working with clients at a pre-contemplation stage – i.e., lacking a sense of personal problem or being ambivalent in regard to change – should focus on evoking client responses that guide the problem conversation further. Subjectivity and authorship in narrating ones' own acting is a precondition for a client to adopt the position of a change agent, and a collaborative stance in the counseling process. Considering the variation of means of disclaiming agency found among clients displaying unconcerned, egotistical and disowned agency, we consider a flexible use of approaches, interventions and methods to be necessary to make progression from the pre-contemplation stage possible. Following their key idea of "doing the right thing at the right time," the stage theorists (Prohachaska & DiClemente, 2005; Prochaska & Norcross,2010; Stiles, et al., 1990 21 sometimes the appropriate thing to do is to accept clients' current un-readiness for change and to suggest that clients "come back later when they are ready." The counselor should bear in mind that engaging the offender-client in collaborative counseling is a necessary precondition for change. Our study showed that DD offender-clients' narrating at the outset of counseling, and the different displays of agency within the narration, constructed various ways of relating to DD and to requests of taking responsibility. The qualities of expressed – or absent – subjectivity, the degree of assumed authorship, and the amount of reflection in the DD stories made a difference with respect to the clients' current potential to deal with the DD problem in counseling and to establish.

You should hire a drunk driving injury lawyer as soon as possible after an accident involving a drunk driver. An experienced drunk driving lawyer from Jack Bernstein, Injury Attorneys, can help you navigate the legal process, determine your legal rights and options, and help you seek compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and other damages.The penalties for drunk driving in Florida vary depending on the circumstances of the offense. Generally, first-time offenders can face fines of up to $1,000, license suspension, and mandatory community service. Repeat offenders can face up to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000Is Drunk Driving A Felony?

In some states, drunk driving can be considered a felony, depending on the circumstances. For example, if the driver has a prior conviction for drunk driving or if someone was seriously injured or killed as a result of the driver's intoxication, the driver could face felony charges.

In Florida, a drunk driving charge can become a felony if the driver has three or more prior DUI convictions, caused serious bodily injury to another person, or caused the death of another person while driving under the influence.

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When Did Drunk Driving Become Illegal?

Most people are surprised to learn that on September 10, 1910, New York was the first state to pass drunk driving laws. California soon followed with its own laws. However, these early laws merely made it illegal to drive while under the influence of alcohol. It was entirely left up to law enforcement to determine whether someone was too intoxicated to drive.

When Was Drunk Driving Made Illegal?

focus is on a hand reaching for car keys that are sitting next to a glass of beer on a bar.

Depending on the state where you lived, drunk driving was allowed in many states, even in the 1980s. According to a news article in the Los Angeles Times, drinking and driving were still considered legal in 26 states as of January 26, 1985.

The article mentions that at that time, one could travel from Key West, FL, and plan a route to the Idaho-Canadian border and be able to drink for the 3,700-mile trip legally.

It was not until 1980, after Candy Lightner lost her daughter Cari to a drunk driver, that laws started to change. Candy Lightner formed the organization Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which advocated for stricter drunk driving laws.

In 1984, MADD successfully pushed for the passage of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which required all states to raise the legal drinking age to 21. Additionally, MADD launched its "Tie One On For Safety" campaign that encouraged people to tie a red ribbon to their car antennas to remind others not to drink and drive.

Since its founding in 1980, MADD has accomplished significant changes in public policy, including the adoption of strict laws that have resulted in harsher punishments for those convicted of driving under the influence (DUI). MADD has also increased public awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving, and has provided victims' services and support to those affected by drunk driving accidents.

When you are injured in a drunk driving accident, you may be entitled to more compensation than you realize. Call Jack Bernstein today to schedule a free case evaluation.

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When Did Drunk Driving Become Illegal In Florida?

Florida was one of the 26 states where drinking and driving were still legal in 1985. However, things soon changed in part due to the efforts of MADD. As a result, drunk driving was made illegal in Florida in 1986 in response to the increasing number of deaths and serious injuries that resulted from drinking and driving.

The state implemented a zero-tolerance policy for drivers under the age of 21 and also increased the penalties for those convicted of drunk driving. The goal was to create a safer road environment for all motorists by deterring individuals from driving while under the influence of alcohol.