DUI paperwork mistakes allow thousands of drivers back on Illinois roads : Government Failure Make Roads Unsafe

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Bureaucratic mix-ups have let thousands of drunken drivers avoid mandatory license suspensions and stay on the roads, a Tribune investigation has found.

A Tribune review of state data found case after case across the Chicago area in which the arrests of these drivers — some with repeat DUIs — are not being logged into state computers to ensure their licenses are suspended. The failures come in a process that still relies on police filling out forms by hand and mailing them to the state, a process rife with human error that frustrates anti-DUI advocates.

"There are so many ways for things to get lost," said Cathy Stanley, with Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists. "Nothing is instantaneously done or efficiently done like it should be."


A spokeswoman for Secretary of State Jesse White, who administers the suspensions, said the office was disappointed at the Tribune's findings and worried "there are potentially dangerous drivers, who have violated the law, driving on our roadways."

Government failure on the government roads.