Hi CalMatters reader,

More people are dying in alcohol-related accidents on California roads – a lot more.

Federal estimates say deaths have shot up by more than 50% in the last decade. That’s far worse than the rest of the country.

We wanted to understand what’s going on. So reporters Robert Lewis and Lauren Hepler made their way through that database of vehicular manslaughter cases that we built for License to Kill. They examined state DUI laws across the country. And they talked to people – victims, drunk drivers who’d killed, former lawmakers and more.

They came away with a simple conclusion: 

California’s DUI enforcement system is broken. The toll can be counted in bodies.

The generations of one family lost to drunk driving. The father who buried his daughter in her wedding dress. The young man who joined the police force after witnessing his brother’s death. 

The woman with 16 DUIs that California can’t keep off the road. And the man who she hit head-on, with a warning for California officials:

“You have an opportunity to stop this.”

Long a leader in the anti-DUI movement, California has fallen behind. We now have some of the weakest DUI laws in the nation, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment.

In this series, we’ve previously exposed how:

• The Department of Motor Vehicles routinely allows dangerous drivers with horrifying histories to continue to operate on our roadways. (Part 1)

• County courts across California aren’t reporting vehicular manslaughter convictions to the DMV, preventing convicted killers from getting their licenses suspended. (Part 2)

This third installment reveals that state leaders at all levels have shown little willingness to address drunk driving. 

Please read the full story, and let me know what you think. Send me your questions and responses. And pass this email along to someone you think needs to see it.