Auto mechanic Harvey Ray Smith, 29, shuffles out of a North Florida courtroom, guilty of drunken driving. With unpaid traffic fines, another DUI, cocaine convictions and 13 speeding tickets in his past, he wasn't supposed to be driving at all.
``Why was I driving without a license?'' he answers, grinning. `` `Cause you can't depend on nobody else to pick you up and take you where you need to go.''
Smith may be headed toward a fatal crash. His chances are higher than average.
Dangerous drivers blindside justice, escaping the sting of punishment by ignoring or outsmarting authorities. They find soft spots in the law and continue to drive drunk - not only in Florida but across the nation.
``We have so many scofflaws, people that don't adhere to the provisions of the law,'' says John Moulden, president of the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.
``The general public thinks they're being protected, but people throughout the system simply are not adhering to the law.''
A fourth DUI can be prosecuted as a felony, which boots it from county court to state, or circuit, court.
But among some county judges and prosecutors, there's a perception that circuit judges don't take DUI seriously until someone's hurt.
Florida law spells out minimum penalties for first, second and third DUIs - misdemeanors - but felony judges have more discretion over multiple offenders.
Colie Nichols Jr., a county judge in the Florida Panhandle, doesn't see severe penalties coming out of circuit court.
``There's been a reluctance to come down really, really hard, I think, on a repeat DUI driver,'' he says.
That may explain why prosecutors don't seem to bother filing felony DUIs, says Judge Ober in Tampa.
Defense attorneys actually prefer circuit court, says County Judge Leonard Feiner in Fort Lauderdale, because clients stand a better chance of avoiding jail.
None of that surprises Moulden, a veteran of highway safety efforts. He worked for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration prior to taking over the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, a spinoff of a 1982 Reagan task force.
Hillsborough County deputies administer a sobriety test to a DUI suspect. Though drivers must promise to take the test when they accept a driver's license, test refusals are not criminal offenses in Florida.
FRED FOX/Tribune photo
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Judges, he says, become overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of DUI cases.
``What we've had to do,'' he says, ``is figure out a way to bypass the court system.
``The court system has failed us when it comes to preventing and deterring drunk driving.''
Disappointment with courts is so widespread that the federal government advises state legislators to keep some DUI penalties out of the hands of judges, by delegating authority to state agencies.
Some states are doing that, giving licensing agencies control of such sanctions as the ignition interlock.
People ought to hold judges accountable for their rulings, Moulden says.
That's not easy in Florida.
State court administrators could not provide complete records of penalties imposed in DUI manslaughter and fatal hit-and-run cases when The Tampa Tribune requested them.
Volunteers from Mothers Against Drunk Driving used to keep score by babysitting courtrooms. Most MADD chapters don't have time anymore.
Judy Alexander, the group's statewide executive director, gripes about the lack of centralized state information.
``It's a big, dark secret,'' she says. ``Nobody keeps all those statistics, or you have to go from one department to another to get this kind of information.''
Records would likely show that judges differ widely in their handling of the cases, Moulden says.
``There are a lot of well-meaning judges out there who simply don't appreciate the seriousness of the crime,'' he says.
``There are still some people who think of drunk driving as a social faux pas. They don't view it as a criminal activity.''
Judges take office through a constituency largely tolerant of social drinking.
In Tampa and other cities, public events revolve around alcohol.
Football fans stagger past police officers directing traffic after Tampa Bay Buccaneers games. Gasparilla spectators drink beer on the streets, then climb into automobiles. Ybor City's nightclubs empty on weekend nights, launching thousands onto Interstate 4.
In Pinellas County, County Judge Patrick Caddell ponders the decline of the neighborhood tavern and the subsequent exodus of drinkers to highways, wondering where it all went wrong.
Florida's troubles are the troubles of the nation.
It's a nation repeatedly assured by government that alcohol-related fatalities are dropping to all-time lows.
The mantra works so well that, last month, MADD national President Karolyn Nunnallee accused Americans of complacency and government leaders of indifference.
She used the word ``plateau,'' and complained about the strained resources of police to stop drunken drivers.
``Their hands are pretty well tied,'' agrees MADD executive Alexander. ``There's just not enough law enforcement on the roads to be able to handle that along with every other crime that's occurring out there.''
People lose interest in paying for a war they assume they are winning.
But the assumption sits on shaky ground.
The federal government doesn't actually know how many deaths are caused by drunken drivers.
Florida and other states fail to test and report the blood alcohol levels of most drivers in serious or fatal crashes. State law doesn't require it and even discourages it, forcing officers to collect independent evidence of impairment before taking a sample.
The lack of blood tests and solid data hurts the accuracy of statistics and may allow some impaired drivers - those adept at appearing sober - to go free.
Even if federal statisticians have worked miracles, their numbers offer little consolation:
Last year, alcohol-related deaths dipped below 16,000.
And that was a record low.
Alcohol-related crashes cost the United States an estimated $45 billion a year, enough money to buy a 12-pack of Budweiser for every human being on the planet.
Forecasters expect trouble ahead.
Police fight the current. Rising numbers of teens now enter the chaos, over-steering toward their deadly 20s and sharing the road with habitual offenders, long since deaf to appeals for caution.
``The more educated you get, the more frightened you are,'' says Alexander.
And the more pessimistic.
``The drinking drivers that are left now, compared to 10 years ago, are people that are more difficult to reach,'' says Jim Frank of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C.
``So, we're affecting fewer of them.''
Florida's DUI laws and penalties, among the nation's toughest, win praise from groups such as MADD.
But the laws don't always translate to action, beginning with cops on the street and ending in court.
``We can continue to have all the laws you want on the books,'' Alexander says. ``But if they're not enforced, if they're not interpreted satisfactorily, they're not doing you a bit of good.''
On the streets, the strain shows.
Florida's DUI arrests hit a decade low last year - 55,705 - in keeping with a national trend.
That's not a good sign, according to highway safety analysts.
``It actually indicates less attention to the problem of drunk driving almost across the board,'' Moulden says.
Jim Frank of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration concurs.
``We don't look at DUI arrests as an indicator of what's going on in terms of impaired driving,'' Frank says.
To understand the untapped pool of drunken drivers, one need look no further than the Florida Panhandle.
Last year in Santa Rosa County, Sheriff Jerry D. Brown's deputies made just 133 DUI arrests.
This year, they more than quadrupled that, arresting 586 drivers by Nov. 30.
Brown says he gave deputies ``performance goals'' - he doesn't call them quotas - and dispersed them into districts.
In the course of stopping more traffic offenders, deputies found more drunken drivers, more people driving on suspended licenses and more people hiding from warrants. The agency reports a 33 percent drop in serious crime, compared to 1998.
``We're putting criminals in jail and we're putting drunk drivers in jail,'' Brown says. ``We're doing everything people have expected us to do.''
Some in Santa Rosa aren't wild about the new eagerness of drunk-hunting deputies, hungry for performance points. Brown gets his share of beefs, but dishes it right back.
``I ask them, `Who is it you don't want me to arrest?' '' he says.
Unless DUI arrests are a police priority, Moulden says, other crimes get the attention and funding.
``You have to have the political permission to go arrest and prosecute drunk drivers,'' Moulden says. ``There has to be community backing. Local political leaders have to be willing to take the heat.''
The arrests don't guarantee safer roads.
Mitchell Houston James, accused of slamming drunk into a carload of University of South Florida students last month, killing three, had a prior DUI on his record.
Additionally, police had ticketed him seven times for driving while suspended and three times for operating a motor vehicle without a license.
The state relicensed him in 1998.
That year, Florida's Division of Driver Licenses suspended 45,522 drivers for DUI, some for a few months, others for life.
Few in authority expected them all to comply.
``We have an epidemic in this country of people driving while their licenses are suspended or revoked,'' Moulden says. ``Not only suspended or revoked, but people who have never been licensed.''
That includes Pedro Senteno, who crashed into a Palmetto mother and her tiny boy Dec. 6, 1997, and then tried to flee.
He didn't have a license but had previously managed two DUI convictions and a speeding ticket, all by age 25, plus four tickets for driving without the license.
He'd been stopped six times by law enforcement in Dade and Manatee counties.
It took the deaths of 4-year-old Michael McCall and his mother, Jennifer McCall Wilson, to stop Senteno for good, sending him to prison for 34 1/2 years.
``Why are they given chances until somebody's killed or injured?'' says Becky Gage of MADD's Tampa office. ``Why can't they be tougher after the first one? These people get a slap on the hand. They don't think there are any repercussions.''
Each DUI arrest represents 1,000 episodes of drunken driving, Moulden says. It's a formula developed from roadside sobriety surveys.
If it's accurate, then an average of 10,636 people a day drive drunk on Hillsborough roads, based on 1994-1998 arrest rates.
Hillsborough County made 4,375 DUI arrests last year; Pinellas, 4,285; Pasco, 1,433; Polk, 1,116; and Manatee, 716.
Nationally, one-third of those arrested on DUI charges are repeat offenders.
In one study, 61 percent of third-time DUI offenders broke traffic laws while licenses were under suspension.
Florida inventoried its repeat offenders four years ago: 47,391 drivers had three or more DUI arrests, and 3,284 had six or more.
``They're laughing at the system,'' says Major Ken Howes of the Florida Highway Patrol in Tallahassee. ``They're going to drive, regardless.''
Beginning Saturday, a new Florida law permits police to confiscate vehicles if an intoxicated motorist is caught driving on a license already suspended for DUI. But police can't sell the vehicle without a judge's approval. Elsewhere, some judges have been reluctant to take cars from needy families.
The plan also hinges on law enforcement's ability to catch drunken drivers.
In 1991, the Highway Patrol tried ``Operation Roundup.'' An elite unit of troopers in four counties, including Hillsborough, kept watch on six-time DUI offenders with prior arrests for driving while suspended.
They arrested 116, including a Tampa man who, in the process, racked up his 26th DUI conviction.
The program lasted less than a year before budget cuts pulled troopers away. They tried again in 1995. Howes recalls more manpower troubles.
Now, such programs seem a luxury to a patrol that suffers 150 trooper vacancies. Low pay cripples recruitment efforts, Howes says.
Hillsborough sheriff's deputies have tried similar programs, also time-consuming.
``The problem is life goes on, too,'' says sheriff's Cpl. George Mosher.
And so do the suspended drivers.
If they don't crash, if they don't get ticketed, they probably won't get caught.
Success fuels the risk-taking.
``It's sort of like drunk driving,'' Moulden says. ``If you're a professional drunk, you're out there driving drunk daily. You're not getting stopped, caught.
``You figure, geez, the likelihood is one in a million I'm going to get stopped.
``What's to deter me from doing it?''
Patty Ryan can be reached at (813) 259-7605 or pryan@tampatrib.com
