Melissa yates proves sobriety to a car that won't start without a legal breath test. A judge int he Florida Panhandle ordered her to install the ignition interlock device after a drunken driving arrest. COLIN HACKLEY/Tribune photo.

MILTON - Friends bought her beers to celebrate a promotion. Afterward, Melissa Yates drove the wrong way on U.S. 98, straight into a head-on crash. No one was hurt.

That was in January, before a no-nonsense Panhandle judge, Colie Nichols Jr., ordered her to put a breath tester on her car.

Now the car won't start if she's tipsy, and a microchip records her every try.

``I can't drink those four or five glasses of wine, or I'll never get home,'' the 36-year-old mortgage broker says.

Roughly 45,000 Florida DUI offenders a year could get the same treatment - but don't.

Most Florida judges ignore or don't know about a sentencing tool that could keep drunken drivers from starting their cars. Since October 1990, state law has allowed judges to order ignition interlocks as a condition of probation.

Few do, with exceptions in Milton, Pensacola and recently, Fort Lauderdale.

In part due to judicial ambivalence, interlock providers have found little reason to open shops in Florida, compounding the problem for judges who want to use it.

Judges in Florida have been allowed to order ignition Interlocks since 1990. Many have been reluctant to do so. there are currently 113 Floridians using them COLIN HACKLEY/Tribune photo

The interlock, shaped like a cellular telephone, wires into a car's starter. Drivers blow into a tube. The car won't crank if breath alcohol exceeds a preset limit, and a data recorder logs the attempt.

Ten dozen Floridians take such a breath test before hitting the highway, barely a breeze compared to an estimated 10,000 Texans who do the same, among 40,000 nationally, according to industry and federal estimates.

In Texas, the interlock is mandatory for repeat DUI offenders, and judges order it with bail.

``I find it very effective,'' Judge Nichols says.

Highway safety experts do, too.

A study published in this month's American Journal of Public Health reported that ignition interlocks reduce drunken driving even among hard-core offenders. The study, conducted by a University of Maryland professor, monitored drivers for two years.

Proponents of the devices include Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.

``They're not widely used enough,'' says John Moulden, commission president. ``They're just used sporadically even within states that have programs.''

Florida's own Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles concluded in a 1995 report that the interlock is ``useful as a tool to prevent driving after drinking.''

Yet, earlier this year, state legislators shelved a bill that would have made the interlock mandatory for repeat DUI offenders.

Of 45,522 Floridians who lost licenses last year - all for driving under the influence - more than 8,000 were repeat customers.

Judge Nichols says he's limited by the current interlock law: It's targeted at people who still qualify for driving privileges.

It doesn't address third and fourth offenders who lose licenses but brazenly ignore orders to stay off the road.

The federal highway agency cites a study in which 61 percent of third-time drunken drivers were ticketed for crashes and traffic violations while driving on suspended licenses.

``I hate to say this,'' Nichols says, ``but in my experience - and I've been a judge 25 years - many of these people with a suspended license continue to drive anyway.

``I feel better knowing if they're going to operate a vehicle, they have to demonstrate they're sober.''

For now, Nichols orders the device on first offenders with high blood alcohol and on second offenders still eligible to drive. He occasionally sentences repeat offenders to house arrest with at-home alcohol monitoring, using a similar electronic device.

They all wind up in the Milton office of Terry Lynch, a former Florida trooper who owns Continental Interlock. Lynch does business in Florida, Louisiana and Georgia.

He keeps a collection of letters he's written to Florida bureaucrats over the years, a history of his attempts to improve the laws and policies governing the interlock, littered with disappointments.

He blames lobbyists hired by DUI supervision programs. He's convinced they've quashed legislative attempts to expand use of the interlock.

Judge Nichols, 20 years unopposed on the bench, backs him up.

``They see it as a competitor, and it's a shame,'' Nichols says. ``And I think it's seen as a competitor by probation departments and most anyone providing treatment services.

``Problem is, there's only so much money you can expect an offender to pay.''

Interlock users typically pay $60 a month to lease the device. Judges order it for six months to a year. But DUI offenders also pay a mountain of other up-front and monthly costs, totaling in the thousands of dollars.

``I hear people who come before me talk about how much it helped them to stay sober,'' Nichols says. ``In my view, if I had to choose between the interlock and a counseling program, I would choose the interlock.''

Milton, not far from Pensacola, sits in a county dry of liquor, except for isolated beach zoning. Locals boast of plentiful churches. Judge Nichols is a deacon at one.

Sheriff Jerry D. Brown quadrupled DUI arrests this year, simply deciding it was time.

In restaurants around town, Lynch bumps into people who remember when he was a trooper. Now he's the interlock man.

The waitress who pours his tea, Ginny Tyson, completed the interlock program.

``It made me feel like I was somebody special that went through it and learned,'' she says.

``All these girls here, I preach to them it's not worth drinking and driving. Get a designated driver if you've got to go out and drink. Call a cab. It's a lot cheaper than a DUI.''

Lynch sees the interlock as more than a deterrent.

It breaks habits, he says.

``There's nobody cramming some type of theory down somebody's throat, saying you have to do this because it's the right thing to do,'' Lynch says.

``It's this person, facing this technology, every day.''

But providers like Lynch aren't on every street corner.

If Florida judges began ordering interlocks tomorrow, there would be few vendors to provide and service them.

Sandra Lambert, who oversees Florida's Division of Driver Licenses, sees that as a major obstacle.

``How can you require someone in Orange County to have an interlock device when there is not a vendor in the area?'' she says.

Lynch sees the flip side: He once set up a satellite operation in Bradenton after a judge expressed interest. Lynch arranged for a mechanic who works on sheriff's cars to install the interlocks.

But the judge was reassigned, and his successor didn't order interlocks.

University of Maryland Professor Kenneth H. Beck, whose study appeared in the public health journal, points to basic principles of supply and demand.

``These guys are venture capitalists,'' he says. ``They're not going to open multiple service centers until they have a client base.''

He suggests meeting providers halfway.

Broward County judges did just that. A court administrator learned of Texas-based Smart Start Inc. at a conference in 1998. Smart Start owns a big chunk of the interlock business in Texas.

Broward judges, joined by prosecutors and probation officers, met with company president Bettye Rogers to discuss potential use of interlocks.

Rogers agreed to give Broward a try. The county includes Fort Lauderdale, which led the nation in crash fatality rates last year, some of them fueled by alcohol.

``It takes about a year to get things organized and a program started,'' Rogers says.

Smart Start opened in September and has installed interlocks on 20 cars, with orders for 20 more, Rogers says.

Broward judges didn't wait for the Legislature to expand the interlock law. By their own accounts, they've used the device as a condition of bail for second offenders, and they've ordered the interlock on cars owned by people who can't legally drive.

``There's nothing to guarantee that a person whose privileges have been revoked is not going to get behind the wheel of the car and drive,'' says Broward Judge Leonard Feiner.

If Fort Lauderdale proves to be like other interlock cities, offenders will look for ways to circumvent the technology.

``The biggest danger, frankly, is that somebody will just drive another car,'' says Moulden.

The interlock makes even that tough. It's against the law to let an interlock user borrow a car, unless it's a car with an interlock.

Stories abound of early users who filled balloons while sober, then used the air for a test.

Even now, some enlist sober bystanders to donate breath, also illegal.

``For every lock, there's a pick,'' muses Jim Frank at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Newer interlock models require users to hum while blowing, rendering balloon air useless. And they demand a retest once the car gets rolling.

For safety reasons, the device won't stop a car in motion. But if the driver fails the retest, interlocks trigger the horn and lights.

``You become a traveling circus,'' says Moulden. ``It's a lot less likely you're going to escape unnoticed.''

The interlock remembers every breath.

Offenders must report monthly to a service center, where technicians download the details. If the clients don't show, the interlock shuts down the car. If too many DUI attempts appear, the interlock moves up the service date.

The interlock company then relays the information to a probation officer.

If there's a gap in the system, it's there, experts agree.

``Very few places are picking up the ball, taking advantage of interlock and using it as a tool in treatment,'' Frank says.

When an interlock user brings his car in for required monthly service, a log of each use is downloaded, then relayed to probation officers when necessary. If the offender does not report to the service center, the device shuts down the car. The interlock log shows two times when the car was not started because of a driver's high bllood alcohol level.. COLIN HACKLEY/Tribune photo

Beck's next study will look at first-time offenders who get alcohol treatment in conjunction with the interlock.

Users grumble about cost and embarrassment - but admit the device makes them think before they drink.

The night of her crash, Yates says, she made a subconscious decision that led her to drink and drive. The interlock forces her to make conscious decisions.

``This thing is not a person,'' she says. ``It doesn't care about me. You can't argue with it. It's saying, `You're not going to drink and drive.' ''

Yates works the interlock into her routine. When it beeps for her retest at the McDonald's drive-through window, she pretends she's talking on a cell phone. Mornings, she puts on her lipstick while waiting for the device to go through its 45-second warm-up.

Then there's Bobby Spottswood, 65, recovering alcoholic.

``Most of my drinking was done in a car, not a bar,'' Spottswood says. ``I'd fix my care package and just drive hundreds of miles and drink, drink, drink.''

He served out his court-ordered interlock sentence five years ago but continues to lease one, as a daily reminder to stay sober.

The interlock has its critics, among them, the stunned drivers walking out of Judge Nichols' courtroom.

``I'd just as soon have given up my driver's license,'' says Mary Vela, 46, a military widow.

She wonders aloud how her asthma might affect a test.

Tommy Ratchford Jr., one of Santa Rosa County's busiest DUI lawyers, isn't comfortable seeing private enterprise run the programs.

``They set themselves up as, `I'm part of the system,' '' he says, ``and they scare the hell out of these people.''

To which, Judge Nichols replies: ``Government does not come forward to fill the need. The industry does come forward. They're willing to invest the money and take the risk.''

Researcher Beck predicts increased demand for the interlock as judges and insurance companies learn of its potential.

Lynch figures judges would order the interlock more often if they learned more about it.

``They're not educated in how effective it really is,'' Lynch says. ``When you don't know about something, you're afraid of it.

``But is there going to be a statewide interlock program? Yes, there is.''

Back in the Tampa Bay area, the interlock exists only in law books.

``We experimented with them some years back and had a lot of problems,'' says Pinellas Judge Patrick Caddell. ``I think the technology wasn't fully developed at the time.''

``I hate all these new electronic, fancy things,'' says Hillsborough Circuit Judge Diana Allen. ``I think it's just something else that's going to go wrong on a car. I probably would never get mine started.''

Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Tom Przybylowicz in Bradenton looks down the road a ways.

It's a road already filled with seat belts and airbags.

Why, he wonders, couldn't all cars have interlocks?

Those who study impaired driving brighten at the idea.

``We knew about airbag technology 20 years before it became standard,'' Beck says.

Patty Ryan can be reached at (813) 259-7605 or pryan@tampatrib.com.