A new DWI law in effect Friday as the legislature hopes to crack down on repeat offenders.
State Rep. Larry Kraft (DFL - St. Louis Park) began constructing the bill last September after the tragic incident at Park Tavern where a drunk driver, Steven Bailey, killed two and injured 12.
"This guy had five prior offenses, and I think he had a sixth when he was a teenager in Wisconsin," Kraft explained. "And my first response is, what on earth is going on? Why is someone with this many priors able to commit this kind of a a tragedy?"
The new law increases the amount of time a driver would be required to use the ignition interlock system following each offense, from two, to six, to ten, and so on.
"The other thing that we did was we said, look, the lookback period for counting offenses was 10 years and we changed that in most cases to 20," Kraft added.
Also, the $680 reinstatement fee is no longer needed up front, but still needs to paid before getting off the program.
"I really hope that this, and I think it will based on the data, this will prevent this kind of thing from happening in some other places around the state and will save lives," says Kraft.
The driver in the Park Tavern crash was sentenced to 30 years in prison earlier this week.
Bailey reportedly had a 0.325% blood-alcohol level, which is four times the legal limit in Minnesota. He told the court that he believed his use of alcohol was not a problem despite having five DWI arrests.