By Deborah Baker
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA FE - Busted twice for drunken driving and determined to turn his life around, state Sen. Phil Griego found an ally in an unlikely place - his pickup truck.

Griego is among several hundred New Mexicans who had ignition interlocks installed in their vehicles over the past few years to stop them from driving drunk.

"When you're an alcoholic and recovering, you get the urge to drink just on the spur of the moment," said Griego, who used the court-ordered device for a year and has been sober now for 20 months.

"This little instrument helped me maintain my sobriety. It almost became like a good friend," said Griego, a Democrat from rural San Miguel County.

The use of ignition interlocks - breath-alcohol analyzers connected to vehicles' ignition systems - is about to dramatically expand in New Mexico.

Until now, judges have had the option to order them installed, but that hasn't been widely done.

As of Jan. 1, however, the devices will be mandatory for a year for repeat drunken drivers and for those convicted of aggravated DWI.

Aggravated DWI can be applied to drivers whose level of intoxication was at least twice the legal limit, to those who refused to be tested or to those who injure someone in a crash.

The interlock law could apply to as many as 9,000 drivers a year across the state, according to the Highway and Transportation Department's Traffic Safety Bureau. By contrast, the bureau estimates that no more than 500 ignition interlocks have been installed since the law first made them optional in July 1999.

There were 13,690 convictions for DWI in the state in 2001, according to the Traffic Safety Bureau.

Drivers must blow into the devices and register a BAC - blood- or breath-alcohol concentration - of .025 or lower in order to start their vehicles. The legal limit is .08.

The devices also require drivers to take random "rolling re-tests" while driving to be sure that they remain sober.

Timothy Hallford, who installs and maintains the devices and trains drivers how to use them, is convinced that they work.

The instruments record how often drivers try to start their vehicles and what happens when they do - data that Hallford and other contractors electronically transmit to courts.

Hallford said his recent review of one driver's data indicated that the man would have driven drunk four times that month had he been able to start his car.

"We know we stopped him," said Hallford, a former chief probation officer for Indiana courts who moved to Santa Fe from California when his job as an insurance fraud investigator was eliminated after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hallford said he was shocked to read of so many drunken-driving deaths and arrests in New Mexico.

"I decided I was going to do something that would make a difference, that was also my work," said Hallford, who started Adobe Interlock in August.

He is one of eight contractors licensed to provide the devices; a dozen or so may ultimately be certified, according the Traffic Safety Bureau.

Offenders will have to pay an installation fee of $150 to $175 and a leasing fee of about $2 a day. Supporters of the law say that's cheaper than drinking. There's also a fund to pay the costs for indigent offenders.

"If you go into a bar, they're going to charge you $4 for a beer - and those of us who can't have just one are going to have 10 or 15," Griego said.

Richard Roth of Santa Fe, a retired physicist and unpaid lobbyist, convinced legislators in 1999 to adopt the use of the devices and worked to get the new law passed.

He said the information created by the use of the ignition interlocks will be valuable to courts.

"You've identified the people who are alcoholics and attempting to continue their behavior and are stopped by the interlock, compared to those who have changed their behaviors," Roth said.

He worries about loopholes in the new law - for example, that offenders might argue that they don't have cars or licenses, or that they don't plan to drive.

"We'll just have to wait and see in how many cases it's actually mandated and actually installed," Roth said.

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