Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White’s Traffic Safety Advisory Committee voted to endorse three impaired driving proposals. Each is designed to make Illinois roads safer, by reducing crashes and fatalities. The 12-member committee is comprised of Legislators, Federal and State traffic safety experts, and law enforcement officials. They met Thursday, January 18, 2018, to hear expert witness testimony from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD); Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists (AAAIM); law enforcement; other officials on impaired driving issues.
The advisory committee endorsed the following measures:
• Strengthen prosecution of DUI by allowing prosecutors to introduce as evidence past DUI offenses committed by the defendant to a jury during a trial. Currently, the law does not allow past DUI convictions to be introduced as evidence during a jury trial.
• Strengthen DUI laws by revising the statue defining a first-time DUI offender. Under current statutory summary suspension law, motorists are considered first-time DUI offenders if five-or-more years have passed since their last DUI.
• Tighten the reporting of rescissions of statutory summary suspension by the courts. Currently, courts may rescind a statutory summary suspension from the driver record, for any reason, and are not required to identify the reason for the rescission.
“I am committed to making the roads of Illinois safer than ever,” said White. “These measures will further strengthen our State’s impaired driving laws. I want to thank the members of the advisory committee for their time and dedication to traffic safety. I will be introducing legislation this spring to turn the committee’s proposals into law.” White is seated in back, second from the left.
