Statewide Iowa — Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law, Wednesday morning, a drunk driving reform bill that will require all first-time-convicted drunk drivers to have an ignition interlock on their vehicle as a condition of receiving a temporary restricted license, or “work permit.”
According to information released by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers), the new law makes Iowa the thirty-second state with an ignition interlock law for all drunk driving offenders.
MADD Says ignition interlocks require drivers to blow into the device before their vehicle will start. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), all-offender interlock laws reduce drunk driving recidivism by 67 percent. A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found interlocks reduce the number of impaired drivers in fatal crashes by 16 percent.
Also Wednesday, MADD released an annual accounting of drunk driving attempts prevented by ignition interlocks. Across the nation, ignition interlocks stopped 354,372 drunk driving attempts in 2017 alone, and nearly 2.69 million over the past 11 years, according to the report.
For more information on ignition interlocks, visit madd.org/interlock.
