San Francisco should pursue the collection of emergency-response costs from
people who crash their cars.

Published Tuesday, May 24, 2005, in the San Francisco Examiner

Editorial

Make DUI drivers pay crash costs

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's office is considering making
people who cause vehicle accidents while the influence of alcohol or
drugs to pay The City for the cost of police, paramedics and other
emergency services. It's a great idea. Even if such drivers end up
not physically injuring anyone, they should be made to take
responsibility for their negligence -- not the people of San
Francisco.

An existing state law provides that drunken or drug-impaired drivers
who cause a crash that requires a response from emergency personnel
can be compelled to pay for the costs, including bills for the time
police spend investigating the crash and for taking the bodies of
anyone killed in the collision to the coroner. Now the Mayor's
Office is looking into drafting legislation to create local
enforcement mechanisms.

The most important impact of drunken driving obviously is the death
and serious injury caused by impaired drivers. Drivers who get
behind the wheel after too many drinks or under the influence of
drugs gamble with their own lives and the lives of everyone in their
path. Beyond that, however, there are other impacts: physical damage
from crashes and time wasted by emergency responders. As a
lieutenant in the San Francisco Police Department's traffic company
put it to The Examiner, "What these drivers have done is stolen the
police time away from our primary mission of protecting the citizens
and deterring crime."

Oakland, Milpitas, Monterey and Capitola are among other California
cities that already take advantage of this provision in state law.
Apparently some smaller municipalities that once implemented the
law have dropped the idea because the costs of collecting the money
exceeded the money collected, particularly when collection agencies
are needed to procure the funds. San Francisco should not be
discouraged by this, but should keep its system of implementing the
law simple and efficient.

As for the problems of collecting the restitution from drivers who
are reluctant to pay, that sounds like a job for San Francisco's
state legislators. Drivers already are blocked from re-registering
their vehicles until they pay all their outstanding traffic tickets.
Perhaps they also should be blocked from re-registering and from
renewing their driver's licenses if they still haven't paid DUI
restitution that has been imposed against them.

San Francisco should pursue the collection of emergency-response
costs from people who crash their cars in The City while under the
influence of alcohol or drugs. Doing so would encourage people who
drink or take drugs to stay off the road, would help The City to
recoup some of the public money it spends responding to DUI crashes,
and would put more of the responsibility for the impacts of crashes
on the drivers who cause them, where it belongs.