Italy stiffens DUI penalties

It’s always inter­est­ing to see what other coun­tries are doing when it come to DUI enforce­ment. Italy is upping the penal­ties for dri­ving while intox­i­cated. Read the arti­cle below, but here are some dif­fer­ences between here and the U.S.A.:

“Legal limit” 0.05 v 0.08 (assum­ing your state doesn’t have a “slight­est degree charge”)

Charged with 0.15 and above and the police can con­fis­cate your car.

Get con­victed of 0.15 or above and the police can KEEP (or auc­tion) your car. If they did that here, all the used car deal­ers would go out of busi­ness as police auc­tions would be the cheap­est way to pur­chase a used vehicle.

Fines seem sig­nif­i­cantly steeper.

Bigger fines if you refuse a blood test (in Arizona if you refuse, they take your license away, get a search war­rant and an offi­cer can stick a nee­dle in your arm, even if a few of his bud­dies have to hold you down)

Also note the 0.05 “legal limit”. That’s com­ing here soon as well most likely. They might skip the 0.05 and go straight to 0.02 (or detected) like many parts of Europe. We’ll see in a few years.

What isn’t writ­ten about is igni­tion inter­locks. I won­der if that is because they don’t use them, or sim­ply because the law regard­ing their use didn’t change.

Complete arti­cle below, orig­i­nally posted here:

Italy ramps up penal­ties for DUI
Rules now in effect apply to every­one dri­ving in the coun­try
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edi­tion, Sunday, June 8, 2008

Penalties for vio­lat­ing Italy’s driving-under-the influ­ence laws keep get­ting stiffer, includ­ing longer jail terms and the con­fis­ca­tion of vehicles.

Fed up with the num­ber of drunken-driving inci­dents, Italian gov­ern­ment offi­cials have imposed the penal­ties to bring down the num­ber of traf­fic casu­al­ties, said to be one of the high­est in Europe. The changes went into effect in May.

Police can con­fis­cate the vehi­cles of motorists who drive under the influ­ence of drugs or whose blood alco­hol lev­els exceed 0.15, accord­ing to changes made to Italy’s Article 4 “rules of the road.” Those motorists also face up to a year in jail.

The con­fis­ca­tion can be per­ma­nent if a per­son is con­victed of the infrac­tion, unless the vehi­cle belongs to some­one else. Confiscated vehi­cles can be auc­tioned off or used by the police, accord­ing to infor­ma­tion pro­vided by Italy’s Ministry of Interior.

The changes fol­low the adop­tion of stiffer penal­ties last sum­mer. Anyone who dri­ves in the coun­try is sub­ject to the law.

Other penal­ties for those dri­ving under the influ­ence in Italy include:

* A blood-alcohol level of more than 0.05 per­cent is con­sid­ered legally intox­i­cated. Drivers with a level of 0.05 to 0.08 face fines rang­ing from 500 euros to 2,000 euros, one month con­fine­ment, and com­mu­nity ser­vice.
* Drivers with a blood alco­hol level of 0.08 to 0.15 face up to six months of jail — an increase of three months over last sum­mers’ changes — fines rang­ing from 800 euros to 3,200 euros, and com­mu­nity ser­vice.
* Those dri­ving under the influ­ence of drugs face up to a year in jail and a fine of 1,500 euros to 6,000 euros.
* Drivers refus­ing to have their blood-alcohol tested face fines from 2,500 euros to 10,000 euros.
* Drivers under the influ­ence of alco­hol or drugs who flee the scene of an acci­dent in which there are injuries, or those who stop but fail to help any­one injured as the result of the acci­dent, face up to three years in jail.

Though not related to the Italian government’s stiffer penal­ties, the U.S. Navy has again launched its annual infor­ma­tion cam­paign, “Critical Days of Summer,” which runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day — his­tor­i­cally when most alco­hol inci­dents occur.

Navy Region Europe started an effort three years ago to dis­trib­ute key-chain Breathalyzers, and has dis­trib­uted more than 5,000 to sailors in Europe. Surveys showed that 63 per­cent of those who self-tested pos­i­tive for being over legal dri­ving lim­its made other arrange­ments for trans­porta­tion or decided not to drive, said Lt. Cmdr. Wendy Snyder, spokes­woman for the command.

The Navy base in Naples, Italy, recorded a 33 per­cent reduc­tion in alcohol-related motor vehi­cle acci­dents between 2006 and last year dur­ing the “crit­i­cal days of sum­mer,” she said.