Campaign Against Drunk Driving

Drunk Driving Law

In the fall of 1999, seven-year-old Leonardo Morales was killed by a drunk driver. (Click here for more info). In Honduras, the penal code clearly states that killing someone in a car accident caused by driving while intoxicated is a crime (vehicular manslaughter), punishable by imprisonment. Leonardo's family contacted the Association for a More Just Society (AJS)'s Honduran partner organization, ASJ, when the drunk driver's family connections to a Supreme Court Justice helped him escape from being held legally responsible for the crime. At the time, we treated it as a case of judicial corruption and focused our attention on the problems in the Supreme Court this case illustrated.

Then, in early 2001, 13 young people on a church retreat were killed in a hit-and-run accident with a drunk driver. Given our background with the Morales family, we felt the impact of their deaths very strongly, and we began to think about drunk driving in Honduras.

There were 1,129 traffic accidents caused by drunk driving reported in the last year and a half (from December 2000 to July 2002). It is hard to say how reliable that statistic is, because there are no legal definitions for inebriation in Honduras, and so many of the accidents attributed to other causes may very well have involved drunk drivers.

In fact, upon further investigation, we found the law regarding drunk driving is so vague that it is virtually unenforceable. There is no legal blood-alcohol limit, so identifying a driver as drunk is left to the discretion of the police and the judge (in the Morales case, the judge declared his inability to verify that the driver was drunk, despite blood tests showing that his blood alcohol concentration was over three times the legal limit in the United States). There are also no legal guidelines for the penalties for drunk driving related offenses.

AJS's Involvement
AJS is funding and overseeing a project to improve the control of drunk driving, in order to prevent more families from suffering such an unnecessary tragedy. Working with families of victims of drunk-driving accidents, we plan to promote better legislation that would help to prevent tragic accidents such as the one the Morales family suffered from happening again. We have drafted a proposal to change the article of the Penal Code that referrs to drunk driving. Our proposal includes clear guidelines for the legal blood alcohol levels, consequences for offenders and procedures for taking blood alcohol measures. ASJ continues doing research on the subject and is attempting to organize groups of victims.

Latest News
ASJ collected signatures to call on the government to pass a drunk driving law. The reforms proposed would allow police officer to use breath tests in screening for drunk drivers and would hold that the breath test is as valid as a blood test in court. Previously, only blood tests administered in certain clinics in Tegucigalpa, which are open only during business hours, could be used. Without the ability to test drivers at night or on the weekends or to test them in any part of the country, Honduras could not begin to enforce laws to curb drunk driving.

In early 2006, some of the changes proposed by ASJ were signed into law by Honduras' National Congress, making it easier to arrest and prosecute drunk drivers. The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) continues to support efforts to monitor the implementation of these new laws.

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The Association for a More Just Society (AJS) oversees and funds initiatives carried out by Honduran partner organization la Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa (ASJ). AJS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so all donations to AJS are tax-deductible for US taxpayers.