Print edition: 
No one plans to get a DUI, but if you do drink and drive, you should know about stiffer penalties that go into effect today.
The changes — including higher fines and ignition interlock devices for first-time DUI offenders — will help make Kansas safer, said Rep. Pat Colloton, R- Leawood, chairwoman of the House's Corrections and Juvenile Committee.
Colloton and Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, hashed out the details of penalties with committee members.
Starting today, Colloton said Kansas is the seventh state to require first-time offenders to drive with an ignition interlock device for at least six months. Such devices monitor a driver's breath alcohol level. If a driver blows into the device and the device determines the person's breath alcohol level is higher than allowed, his or her vehicle won't start.
Use of the interlock device allows DUI offenders to continue to work, be productive citizens and take care of family members, Colloton said. About 80 percent of people who've lost the right to drive do so anyway, she said.
"We're at the front end of a national trend," Colloton said Thursday. "We're not at the very beginning of it, but we're on the front end."
The changes are the work of the state's DUI Commission, which met for two years, then made recommendations to legislators. Among them:
* If you are convicted of driving under the influence, your pocketbook is going to take more of a hit. The minimum fine for a first offense is increasing to $750 from $500. The maximum fine remains at $1,000.
The minimum and maximum fines for a second offense are seeing a $250 increase, to a minimum of $1,250 and a maximum of $1,750.
The minimum fine for a third offense is increasing to $1,750 from $1,500. The maximum fine is $2,500.
* You'll have to install an interlock device in your vehicle, even if it's your first DUI offense.
Between today and June 30, 2015, driving privileges for a first-time DUI offender will be suspended for 30 days, followed by offenders having to use an interlock device for at least six months. Some people with certain past driving violations will have to drive with such a device for a year.
The interlock requirement for first-time offenders ends in 2015 so that the state can study whether the requirement has done what legislators hoped it would.
After July 1, 2015, the penalty for a first DUI offense would return to the previous law — a 30-day license suspension and a 330-day restriction to driving for only certain reasons with an option for interlock.
The penalty for a second offense doesn't change.
For a third conviction, driving privileges will be suspended for one year, followed by a two-year ignition interlock requirement. The penalty had been a one-year license suspension and one-year interlock requirement.
For a fourth offense, driving privileges will be suspended for one year, followed by a three-year interlock requirement. The penalty had been a one-year license suspension and a one-year interlock requirement.
For a fifth offense, driving privileges will be suspended for one year, followed by a 10-year interlock requirement. The old law had called for permanent revocation of the driver's license.
* The state is setting up a central repository to track DUI offenses.
Colloton and Owens have called this perhaps the most important part of the new law.
The repository, which will be overseen by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, will aim to ensure that law enforcement, prosecutors and judges have correct information about a driver's past.
Sometimes they haven't known how many times a driver has been convicted of a DUI offense. That was the case in an accident in 2008 that killed Claudia Mijares and her 4-year-old daughter while they were crossing the street to go to school in Wichita.
Prosecutors charged the driver with his fifth DUI after the accident, state and county records show. But because of gaps in reporting, the state driver's license database showed only two of those convictions. That led to questions about how meaningful the state's DUI laws can be if law enforcement, prosecutors and judges don't know how many times someone has been convicted of driving while under the influence.
Funding for the repository was in question, but the Kansas Department of Transportation agreed to juggle its budget to find $2.5 million for it.
More supervision of repeat offenders
The higher DUI fines will help pay for more intensive supervision for repeat offenders.
Counties had been concerned about a plan to double the time DUI offenders would spend in jail. The time has increased, but it has not doubled, Sedgwick County Sheriff Robert Hinshaw said.
"Where there may be an impact, but we might not see it for several months, is new provisions for post-conviction supervision," Hinshaw said. "Part of that requirement is that if they were to fail (or violate) that, then the balance of the time left to serve would be spent in a local county jail."
The state estimated that 800 to 900 people being supervised would be shifted to community corrections "and Sedgwick County probably would have the lion's share of that." Some of those people likely will violate rules of their supervision and end up in a county jail, he said.
Hinshaw said he is "feeling much better" about changes to the state's DUI laws, compared with what was proposed, because community corrections will receive money from the increased fines.
Community corrections is up to the challenge, he said, "but you've got to fund it. Otherwise you're setting people up for failure if you don't have additional funding."
