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Ignition interlock devices likely saved numerous lives in 2016

We’ve seen it far too many times. An innocent person has his or her life taken because he or she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and was killed in a crash involving a drunk driver.

It’s why we rank driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol among the most stupidly selfish things a person can do.

And if it wasn’t for the Pennsylvania Impaired Driving Law, who knows how many more times we’d see people needlessly killed due to others’ bad decisions?

That law requires anyone convicted of impaired driving on two or more occasions to have an ignition interlock device installed on any vehicle he or she operates, owns or leases. The would-be driver blows into the device just like he or she would while taking a breathalyzer test. If any alcohol is detected — not just if the person is at or in excess of the commonwealth’s legal limit of .08 percent blood-alcohol content — it will prevent the vehicle from starting.

According to the Pennsylvania DUI Association, the devices stopped 53,083 attempts by repeat DUI offenders to drive while under the influence of alcohol in 2016 in our state.

Think about that for a moment.

That averages out to a little more than two per day for each county in Pennsylvania.

How many of those attempts would have ended in tragedy had the ignition interlock device not done its job?

It goes to show that there are far too many people who still somehow haven’t learned their lesson when it comes to driving while impaired.

And those numbers are likely to only go up because in August, Pennsylvania’s Act 33 will take effect, which will force any first-time DUI offender who had a BAC of .10 or greater to install an ignition interlock on his or her vehicle.

That can only serve to make our roadways safer.

No matter how much we’d all like to see our roads free of impaired drivers, the fact remains that some people will always make careless decisions.

Thankfully, we have a system in place to take the choice away from those who have exhibited poor judgment in this regard.

Their inconvenience is worth a whole lot less than someone’s life who may have been unnecessarily ended had they been able to get behind the wheel.

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