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Illinois is one of the toughest states in the country regarding the issue of driving under the influence and the severity of being caught. But as recently as 20 years ago, it found itself near the bottom of the list.
The average number of fatal deaths on the road in Illinois during that period of time was around 2,100. Compared to today ˜ with an increased number of drivers on the road ˜ the fatalities have substantially subsided. There were 1,411 traffic deaths in Illinois in 2002, with alcohol being involved in 46 percent of those crashes. In 80 percent of all fatal crashes, first-time offenders were the cause.
Smaller, less-populated areas, such as the Southern Illinois region, generally have had more than their fair share of deaths as a result of driving under the influence.
"I'll tell you why, it is because it is rural there," says Marty Bellushchi, a board member of the Alliance Against Intoxicated motorists and former director of the Illinois Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "I live in the city of Chicago. I can go to the bar and walk home. We are always trying to reach the people of Southern Illinois that you can not drink and drive."
In January 1981, when Jim Edgar was appointed secretary of state, Illinois' DUI laws were among most feeble in the union.
"Illinois finally started to take a long look at its weak DUI laws," said Allen Grosboll, who was one of Edgar's key advisers during the battle to toughen the DUI laws. "That was because Jim Edgar believed, and a lot of people believed Illinois had the weakest drunk driving laws in the nation."
Prior to Edgar's arrival, Illinois law stipulated that a person had to be given two breathalyzers for the evidence to be admissible in court. If the person failed the first test, they were given the choice of taking the next, and if they didn't, they were let off no matter of their blood alcohol concentration.
"It makes no sense," Grosboll said. "Ninety percent of people arrested for drinking and driving didn't lose their license. That is the best example of how pitiful our laws were."
After being arrested with the charge of driving under the influence, the courts would punish the offenders with only court supervision.
The system allowed for the so many multiple offenders to go unseen by the secretary of state's office because counties at the time didn't share records.
"A person could get a DUI in one county and be arrested for being drunk in another county and they just give him another one," Grosboll said. "Nothing was recorded. Theoretically, a person could get arrested in 102 counties in Illinois and not a single county would know that that individual was arrested in another county."
The first phase in reinforcing the DUI laws in the state was to eradicate the loopholes defense lawyers used to shield offenders, such as making the first breathalyzer admissible and making the counties share information on offender with the state.
"The penalties for drunk driving were substantially increased," Grosboll said. "That was all accomplished in the early 1980s."
Edgar then approached the state legislature to allow the secretary of state's office to administratively suspend licenses for people who failed breathalyzers or opted not to take one. In the mid-1980s, the secretary of state was granted those administrative powers. Afterward, 90 percent of people arrested on DUI's lost their licenses, the exact reverse of before.
In the late 1990s when Edgar was in office as Illinois' governor, the issue of lowering the illegal blood alcohol concentration from .10 to .08 began to surface.
"Most of us never heard of the .08 before we started becoming more sophisticated on the drunk driving issue," Grosboll said.
Inside the traffic safety industry, the theory was people began to feel the effects of alcohol before .10. In retaliation to Edgar's campaign to lower the illegal BAC limit to .08, some factions began to criticize to decision, namely those involved in the hospitality industry and defense lawyers.
"When you draw a chart that shows the number of drinks and the crash probability, it is right at .08 when the line increases exponentially," Belluschi explained. "That is when people of all weights and all sizes are impaired."
As Edgar left to assume the role of Illinois' governor, George Ryan, who replaced him as secretary of state, finished the final push to lower the BAC. In 1997, legislation voted to lower the BAC .10 and Edgar signed the bill into law on July 2nd of that year.
"Everything was a tough fight," Grosboll said. "Getting every one of these laws passed was a tough fight."
