Abstract
Drunk driving persists as a serious problem in the United States, claiming thousands of lives every year. Although the drunk driving fatality rate decreased following advancements in federal drunk driving legislation during the 1990s, after decades of remaining unchanged, the drunk driving fatality rate has increased in recent years. The increase in drunk driving fatalities has been associated, in part, with an increase in drunk driving recidivism, a phenomenon that is closely linked to alcoholism and poses a serious problem for the community. Individuals who suffer from alcoholism often develop higher tolerances, which can lead to overconsumption and a diminished capacity to determine whether their levels of impairment are such that they should not drive. To reduce the drunk driving fatality rate, the federal government should pass a law providing states with a program that includes the following two components: (1) a Tier System that categorizes drunk driving recidivists according to their degree of dangerousness and penalizes individuals according to their Tier designation; and (2) a grant program to facilitate state adoption of the federal program. This Note argues that the federal government will be successful at reducing the drunk driving fatality rate by imposing a Tier System that categorizes individuals based on their degree of dangerousness, modeled after the Tier System that exists in the context of sexual offenders. Generally, as many scholars support the presumption that targeting recidivism is a worthwhile endeavor to reduce the execution of crimes, the federal government can save human lives by implementing a program that specifically targets drunk driving recidivists.
Recommended Citation
Maycie Bloom,
Under the Influence: Why the Federal Government Should Implement a Tier System for Drunk Drivers,
36 U. Fla. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y
569
(2026).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/jlpp/vol36/iss3/4