As all of us are painfully aware, citizens who comply with traffic laws are frequently victims of crashes caused by those who continue to drive after having their driver’s licenses suspended or revoked as a result of intoxicated driving. Innocent victims often suffer incalculable loss at the hands of people who flaunt the law.

The enclosed Safe Streets Act Model Law was designed to alleviate this serious problem by providing for the immobilization of vehicles driven by individuals with suspended or revoked driver’s licenses as a result of convictions of driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence (DUI). Its purpose is to prevent traffic crashes both by removing dangerous drivers from the road and by deterring DWI or DUI violators from continuing to drink and drive.

By requiring vehicle immobilization instead of vehicle forfeiture, and by allowing for installation of vehicle interlock systems when innocent owners would otherwise be deprived of use of their vehicles, this model law improves safety while minimizing adverse impacts on innocent parties residing with culpable violators. Protection of innocent parties is important from a constitutional as well as a fairness perspective because punishment should be reserved for the guilty.

Serious due process and equal protection concerns are raised if vehicle sanctions unduly impact innocent vehicle owners residing in the household of the traffic violator. Vehicle sanctions must adhere to much more demanding constitutional requirements than do driver’s license sanctions - - for the obvious reason that a driver’s license is nontransferable, and thus its suspension or revocation is imposed solely on the guilty party.

Indeed, the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated the provisions of the Ohio forfeiture law as it would have affected innocent owners, in a case that did not even involve an innocent owner. The Court upheld the law as applied to the offender who owned and used the vehicle in the offense, but also held that the challenged law was "unconstitutional as applied to the owner of a vehicle seized and immobilized because the vehicle was being operated by a third person when that person was arrested on a drunk-driving charge." State v. Hochhausler, 76 Ohio St. 3d 455; 668 N. E. 2d 457, 469 (1996)

The Hochhausler case underscores the constitutional need for legislation establishing vehicle sanctions to provide significant protections to innocent vehicle owners, and the advisability of protecting the interests of other innocent users residing in the immediate household who rely on the vehicle.

This model law achieves those critical objectives. It refrains from authorizing vehicle forfeiture which would invite serious due process and equal protection litigation, provides for substantial protection for innocent owners by guaranteeing the right to a post-hearing process, and by establishing user-funded vehicle interlock programs available whenever an innocent user would be denied access to the only private passenger vehicle used in a household, provides a practical and legally-defensible alternative to the removal of essential transportation from innocent third parties.

The model also provides states with maximum flexibility when implementing vehicle immobilization. Vehicles may be rendered inoperable by any of the following methods:

(1) taking possession of the vehicle as provided in state or local impoundment procedures;

(2) immobilizing the vehicle on private property designated by the vehicle owner, by means approved by the immobilizing authority;

(3) or taking possession of the vehicle’s registration and tags.