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SALT LAKE CITY — Diane Pete's adult daughter was driving home late on July 4, 2023, with several friends when her vehicle was struck by an allegedly intoxicated driver traveling the wrong way on Legacy Parkway.
Her daughter was able to swerve at the last second to avoid an even more catastrophic collision, but she suffered a broken back and broken bones in all four limbs, and had to be extricated from the vehicle. The driver, Pete said, had previously been stopped for driving under the influence in Nevada, and again while intoxicated in Utah only days before the collision.
Pete spoke in favor of a Utah bill that would expand some drunken driving penalties for wrong-way driving and allow the state to consider offenses committed in other states when determining prison sentences and other penalties for repeat offenders.
"If these laws had been in place, we would have been able to consider his original DUIs in Nevada in addition to the other ones that he did in Utah, and he would not have been out on the streets," Pete told the House Judiciary Committee last Thursday.
Utah is no stranger to severe car crashes caused by wrong-way drivers. In 2024 alone, multiple wrong-way crashes have killed two women, and left a young girl with life-threatening injuries.
Several people were killed in similar crashes last year, and state troopers also intercepted wrong-way drivers in a pair of harrowing collisions.
Impairment is suspected to have been a factor in several of these crashes, which is why state Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, is proposing a bill to increase penalties for drivers who travel the wrong way on a one-way highway while under the influence. The bill makes several changes to Utah's intoxicated driving laws, and also allows the state to consider similar offenses in other states when imposing penalties on repeat offenders.
Driving under the influence in Utah is a class B misdemeanor for most first-time offenders, but HB395 would increase that to a class A misdemeanor for drivers who go the wrong way — making the crime punishable by a maximum of up to 364 days in jail or fines up to $2,500.
Utah Highway Patrol Col. Michael Rapich said repeat violations are a "big part" of the state's problem with drunken drivers. While 70% of offenders do not repeat, "the remainder that actually (does) repeat, repeat repeatedly and they become a very significant part of the overall problem," he said last Thursday.
"This is a significant issue," he said. "Extreme impairment is becoming more and more of a problem ... that we are not getting in front of right now."
Eliason said his bill also requires offenders to install ignition interlock devices for the mandated period of time following a conviction, rather than certifying that they don't own a vehicle. If a person does not own a vehicle, the interlock device will have to be applied down the line when they purchase a vehicle.
Ignition interlock devices require drivers to blow into a breathalyzer and prevent ignition if the driver is intoxicated.
HB395 was held last week in committee while Eliason worked on changes, including the removal of mandatory minimum sentences for certain violations. A substitute version of the bill was approved Wednesday afternoon.
Under the current version, the state's Sentencing Commission is tasked with amending guidelines for some offenses of negligent operation of a vehicle that results in injury when a driver was also under the influence.
Several defense attorneys who were opposed to the original bill spoke favorably of the changes, but said there is still some work to be done and promised to keep working with Eliason as the bill moves through the Legislature.
