MADD appeals to lawmakers to toughen drunken driving laws in North Carolina
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- There was a push in the General Assembly Tuesday to strengthen our state's drunken driving laws.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving gathered to call on lawmakers to pass two bills, SB 619 and HB 877 that would require ignition interlock devices for anyone convicted of driving drunk, not just repeat offenders.
Colleen Sheehey-Church, the national president of MADD, draped a picture of her son Dustin over the podium.
"I did not come to MADD by choice," she told a crowded press briefing room.
Dustin was 18 years old when he was killed on July 10, 2004 by a drunken driver.
As a backseat passenger, he was riding with a teenaged drunk and drugged driver who lost control of the car, sending it over a cliff and into a river below.
"The only thing that helps ease the pain is knowing that there will be a day when no one else, no other family will have to endure the agony of the preventable violent crime of drunk driving," said Sheehey-Church.
A preventable crime by a number of measures, one of which she said is the ignition interlock device that's already required in North Carolina for repeat offenders, first-time offenders with a blood alcohol concentration of .15 or greater and for drivers who refuse a chemical test for blood alcohol content.
MADD and the bills' sponsors are calling on North Carolina to extend the IID requirement to all offenders.
