Wednesday, September 06, 2000
Driving records could have errors
BMV dependent on reports of violations from courts
By Debra Jasper
Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS — The head of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles acknowledged Tuesday he has “no way of knowing” how often courts fail to report DUIs to the bureau.
Registrar Frank Caltrider's comments came after last week's revelation that a DUI had inexplicably failed to show up on the driving record of state Rep. Larry Householder, a Republican from Perry County who is in line to become next speaker of the Ohio House.
Mr. Caltrider said the bureau doesn't have the staff to audit court records to ensure that all DUI reports are sent in as required. But he said he hopes such failures are rare.
“Can there be mistakes? That's possible,” he said.
Failures to report violations aren't the only potential problems.
Courts across Ohio reported nearly 1.9 million moving violations to the BMV in 1999. Mr. Caltrider said 60 to 70 percent of that information is sent electronically, but some courts send in com puter disks, magnetic tape and even copies of hand-written tickets.
Mr. Caltrider said errors are more likely when state data-entry clerks must type in information from tickets, which can be difficult to decipher. He said the bureau prefers that courts submit electronic data to “avoid posting a conviction to the wrong record.”
State Rep. Jack Ford, D-Toledo, said he intends to draft legislation this month that would clarify court reporting requirements. Mr. Ford, who is the House minority leader, said he is also investigating whether certain fees can be used to help courts pay for computerizing their systems.
Proper reporting is critical, Mr. Ford said, because judges, prosecutors and others rely on BMV records to determine whether someone is a repeat offender and should get harsher punishments.
“If we have some counties where you can get stopped for DUI and it doesn't get reported, we need to change that,” Mr. Ford said.
Attention focused on DUI reporting requirements after The Cincinnati Enquirer found last week that Mr. Householder had a second DUI conviction that was not on his record.
Three years ago, Mr. Householder acknowledged that he was charged with DUI after he drove his car into a ditch on July 4 near Thornville in Perry County. At the time, the BMV report showed it was his first offense.
Mr. Caltrider said he didn't know why the bureau did not have records showing Mr. Householder had also been convicted of DUI in Perry County in 1984. He said he planned to ask the county to send in the records so he can add the conviction to Mr. Householder's file.
“This came to my attention through newspaper accounts. If someone brings it to our attention, we'll follow through,” Mr. Caltrider said. He added, however, that people rarely notify the bureau if a DUI conviction fails to show on their records.
“That's the essence of this problem,” he said.
At this point, Mr. Caltrider said, it would be difficult to tell whether the bureau erred by not recording Mr. Householder's conviction or whether the Perry County Court erred by not sending it in. Clerks in Perry County say they also do not know what happened in the case.
Ohio law says failure to report such a conviction “constitutes misconduct” and is grounds for removal from office.
Although the bureau has only Mr. Householder's 1997 conviction on file, the Enquirer last week reviewed files that show the Perry County legislator had been arrested twice in the 1980s for operating a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and a third time for disorderly conduct while intoxicated.
In addition to the two DUI convictions, he pleaded guilty in 1988 to an amended charge of operating a vehicle recklessly in Athens and again in 1989 to the charge of being disorderly outside an Athens bar.
Tom Gould, administrator for the Hamilton County clerk of courts, said he is not surprised that a 1984 DUI could go unreported for years. He said many counties still don't have the money to install the kind of sophisticated electronic system that Hamilton County uses to send records to the BMV.
He said the county sends in records of hundreds of thousands of violations to the BMV each year and before computerizing its records, errors were rampant. “It was an absolute nightmare,” Mr. Gould said.
“If I have 76,000 traffic cases and I have an error rate of 1 percent, you are still looking at 760 cases that are screwed up,” he said. “A 99 percent correct rate is good from a management perspective, but to those 760 people, it's still screwed up.”
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