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Town hall meeting on drunken driving 

Drunken driving is prevalent and deadly in Wisconsin. A recent federal survey showed that Wisconsin has the highest rate of drunken driving in the nation, and in 2007 alcohol-related traffic crashes killed 337 people and injured more than 5,500 in Wisconsin.

To combat the deadly threat of drunken driving, the Wisconsin State Patrol Bureau of Transportation Safety, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and the UW Law School Resource Center on Impaired Driving held the state’s first-ever town hall meeting on impaired driving on August 14, 2008 in Middleton, Wisconsin.

The town hall meeting brought together traffic safety advocates, legislators, prosecutors, media, law enforcement officers and citizens.

View the various presentations below in Webcast format:

Welcoming session

• Opening remarks (1)
  Major Dan Lonsdorf (Director of the Bureau of Transportation Safety, WisDOT) and Jeff Michael (Acting Associate Administrator of Research and Program Development for NHTSA in Washington D.C.).
  (14:30 min.)
• Opening remarks (2)
  Kari Kinnard (Executive Director of the Wisconsin Chapter of MADD) and Tara Schipper (Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor and Assistant Director of the Resource Center on Impaired Driving).
  (5:00 min.)

Panel 1, overview of impaired driving in Wisconsin

• Dennis Hughes
  Bureau of Transportation Safety, Wisconsin State Patrol, WisDOT. (17:00 min.)
• Dan Pechauer
  Insurance representative from State Farm Insurance, Middleton, WI. (8:30 min.)
• Dr. Stephen Hargarten
  Medical College of Wisconsin and Froedert Hospital, Milwaukee, WI. (18 min.)

Panel 2, impact, actions and options

• Kathleen Falk
  Executive for Dane County, Wisconsin. (16 min.)
• Sergeant William A. Brown
  Supervisor of the OWI Task Force for Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office. (15 min.)
• David Wambach
  District Attorney for Jefferson County, Wisconsin. (17:30 min.)

Panel 3, ignition interlock devices

• Mike Balgord
  National Interlock Service, Inc. (19:00 min.)
• Laura Dean-Mooney
  National President, MADD. (23:30 min.)

Final activities

• Open forum
  Attendees provide comments and ask panel members questions. (24:00 min.)
• Press conference/demonstrations
  (13:00 min.)

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Questions about the content of this page:
Sonya Sidky, Sonya.Sidky@dot.wi.gov
Last modified: January 21, 2011