Cars of drunken drivers could be required to have breath-test ignition locks under a provision in the assembly’s version of the state budget.
The devices block engine ignition if the driver registers a blood-alcohol level of .04 percent or higher.
The proposal could affect some 22,000 convicted drunken drivers a year and would make Wisconsin one of the country’s most aggressive users of such ignition devices, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Sunday.
The machines would be mandatory for many repeat offenders and first offenders convicted with at least a 0.18 percent reading. That approaches double the legal limit of 0.10 percent.
The measure was quietly approved as an amendment to the assembly version of the state budget, which awaits Senate action.
Judge John Siefert of Milwaukee Municipal Court, the state’s busiest court for first-time drunken-driving cases, said he is eager to order the lock for “all first offenses, except where people don’t have the financial ability to pay.
“This will be a lifesaver,” said Siefert, who said the machines work better than license revocation and vehicle-seizure laws.
