Ohio drunken-driving laws rated low

Study says state is 10th most-lenient in the country.

Ohio is the 10th most lenient state with respect to drunken driving, according to a recent study by the social media and analytics company WalletHub.

The study weighted 15 different metrics in assigning rankings to U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Arizona came out on top, while South Dakota landed at the bottom of the list. Ohio tied with New Jersey for the 41st place in strictness.

Ohio defense attorney Jerry Phillips was surprised by the ranking.

“I thought we were fairly stringent,” he said.

Red states generally fared better than blue states, according to the study. Regional patterns were not all that discernible. In general, northern states fared worse than states in the south, excluding the Pacific northwest.

Jill Gonzalez, who helped conduct research for the study, noted the absence of strong regional patterns. “There weren’t as strong of regional ties as you might expect,” Gonzalez said. “That just goes to show how vastly different DUI laws are from state to state, even bordering states.”

Of the 15 metrics analyzed, the most heavily weighted was minimum jail sentencing time for first and second offenses. Ohio scored low in both of these categories.

Phillips noted that certain measures against drunken driving may not have been factored into WalletHub’s study.

One metric asked whether alcohol abuse assessment and/or treatment is mandatory in a given state, awarding 2 points for “yes” and zero for “no.” Ohio scored a zero in this category, but Phillips noted that most first-time offenders in Ohio elect to attend a driver intervention program in lieu of jail time.

Gonzalez noted that the study was strictly about the severity of laws of respective states and not necessarily about their efficacy. According to a 2013 report on drunken driving fatalities by Mothers Against Drunk Driving, 27 percent of traffic fatalities are drunkendriving-related in Ohio, and 26 percent in Arizona. This nominal difference contrasts with Ohio’s 41st versus Arizona’s No. 1 ranking. Utah, ranked by WalletHub as the seventh strictest state, has by far the lowest percentage of drunken-driving-caused traffic fatalities at 17 percent, according to the same MADD study.

Drunken driving laws and penalties vary considerably from state to state. Ohio punishes firsttime offenders with a minimum three-day jail sentence and second-time offenders with a 10-day jail sentence.

West Virginia, meanwhile, has no minimum sentence for first-time offenders but slaps secondtime offenders with an 180-day minimum jail sentence.