Inside drunken driving: Part two

On average in the U.S., three people are arrested for drunken driving every minute. Every hour, someone in the country is killed in a drunken driving crash.

"We're killing each other and we've got to stop this," said Capt. Randy Schultz from the Brown County Sheriff's Department.

In Wisconsin, where 42,000 people were convicted of drunken driving last year, lawmakers are poised to do something about the problem.

"I think that this is going to be a significant, a significant first step," said Assembly majority leader Rep. Tom Nelson, D-Kaukauna.

But some say the legislature is part of the problem.

"My big cry about legislators is they have two priorities, the first is to get elected, the second is to get reelected," said Paul Jenkins. He and his wife Judy have spent the last year and half working to toughen Wisconsin's drunken driving laws.

In April of 2008, their daughter Jennifer Bukosky, her unborn child, and her 10-year-old daughter Courtney Bella, were killed in a crash in Oconomowoc by a man who had already been convicted of drunken driving three times. This time Mark Benson didn't have alcohol in his system, he had something else.

"He was high on prescription drugs," Paul Jenkins said.

Benson was convicted on three counts of homicide by intoxicated use of a motor vehicle and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Just two days before the crash, Benson pleaded guilty to his 3rd drunken driving charge.

"How can we avoid or prevent other families from experiencing what we've experienced?" Judy Jenkins said. "That phone call is really a parent's worst nightmare. And it is a nightmare."

The answer in their eyes is to strengthen the state's drunken driving laws. The question is how.

"We are looking at the first meaningful, comprehensive reform of this state's drunken driving laws in more than a generation," Nelson said. He is touting a plan making its way through the legislature which focuses on repeat offenders and drivers with high blood alcohol levels. The bill would make a fourth offense drunken driving a felony in some cases. Right now, it's not a felony until the fifth offense. The bill would also require ignition interlock devices on for all repeat offenders and first-time offenders with a blood alcohol content higher than 0.15, nearly double the legal limit of .08. The bill would also expand treatment programs.

Wisconsin would still be the only state where a first offense drunken driving is a traffic offense. It would only become a criminal offense under the bill, if there is a child in the car.

"We like to look at it that we take a common sense approach to this," said Brown County Tavern League vice-president John Steeno. He said the state needs to target repeat offenders, not social drinkers.

"The style of the person that we want to be taken off the road is the one who is chronically, repeatedly doing that," Steeno said. "That's where they should really target."

Paul and Judy Jenkins say getting tough on repeat offenders is good, but it's not good enough.

"They're nibbling around the edges," Paul Jenkins said. The Jenkins want to see first offense drunken driving made into a criminal offense. They point to a 2003 study from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation that showed 75% of the drunken drivers involved in fatal and serious injury crashes, were first-time offenders.

"We're trying to intervene before they get in a car to have people stop and think before drinking and driving," Judy Jenkins said. The Jenkins also would like to see sobriety checkpoints legalized. They're not alone. So would Green Bay police chief Jim Arts.

"This is a good tool for law enforcement and a good tool to make our roads safer," Arts said. "If that's the catalyst that keeps drunk drivers off the road I'm all for it."

According to a study from the Centers for Disease Control, sobriety checkpoints reduce alcohol-related crashes by 20%. Wisconsin is one of 12 states that do not allow them. But judging by the legislators we spoke with, don't expect to see sobriety checkpoints anytime soon in Wisconsin.

"Sobriety checkpoints are something that my constituents at least, have spoken saying they're not interested in," Nelson told FOX 11.

State Senator Alan Lasee, R-Rockland, said he'd like to see tougher penalties for first time offenders, but not sobriety checkpoints.

"It's nice to say that we're going to crack down on drunken driving," Lasee said. "But this country was based on individual freedoms and I'd be very cautious about that."

The tavern league is also adamantly opposed to the idea.

"We feel that you're targeting the first-time offender rather than concentrating on where the problem is," Steeno said.

Paul and Judy Jenkins say they are concerned lawmakers will take some action now, and won't do anything else about drunken driving for years.

"They can say look what we've done, if and when it's passed, look what we've done," Paul Jenkins said. "And our big fear is then years will go by before they will do anything again