Overview

S.F. No. 766 contains the same changes to the DWI laws as were made in last year’s vetoed Omnibus Supplemental Budget bill (S.F. No. 3656).

Section 1 expands the list of prior convictions that enhance an offense to first-degree (felony) DWI by including convictions from other states for impaired driving-related criminal vehicular operation offenses if the other state’s statute is in conformity with Minnesota law.

Section 2 requires that a DWI offender whose driver’s license has been revoked for a second offense in ten years or a third overall is not eligible for reinstatement of driving privileges without an ignition interlock device restriction until the commissioner certifies that the person has either (1) participated in the ignition interlock program for the specified period, or (2) during the revocation period: (i) not owned or leased a vehicle, (ii) not transferred ownership of a vehicle to a family or household member, (iii) not had express or implied consent to drive a family or household member’s vehicle, and (iv) had no DWI-related or driver’s license violations.

Strikes the statutory requirement that the Commissioner of Public Safety establish performance standards and a process for certifying chemical monitoring devices and that those standards and procedures are exempt from rulemaking requirements.

Sections 3 to 5 address nonalcohol-related DWI offenses.  Under these provisions, persons committing these offenses are not eligible for the ignition interlock program (section 5).  However, the offender would be eligible for a limited driver’s license (section 3) after a specified hard revocation period (section 4).   (Of note, the hard revocation periods for nonalcohol-related DWI offenders would be the same as they were before 2011.)

Section 6 requires contracts between ignition interlock manufacturers and program participants to include a provision requiring manufacturers to pay any towing or repair costs caused by device failure or malfunction, or by damage caused during device installation, servicing, or monitoring.