In my home state of Oregon, we have a .08 percent intoxication limit but have found that other programs must also be implemented if we are to stop the repeat drunken drivers.
When I was a Portland city commissioner, we passed an ordinance allowing for the forfeiture of the cars of repeated drunken drivers. We have found forfeiture to be more effective than traditional penalties and it has made our streets safer.
Specifically, Portland has seized 886 cars, of which 286 have been permanently forfeited. While drunken-driving deaths in America went up 4 percent between 1994 and 1995, Portland experienced a 42 percent drop. Perhaps most telling, the recidivism rate for offenders whose cars have been seized has been reduced to a low of 4 percent.
I am sponsoring a bill in Congress, House Bill 108, to spread the forfeiture concept. It alters an existing federal anti-drunken driving grant program to give credit to states that target chronic drunken drivers with this measure.
