About 100 people attended a DWI forum at the Santa Fe Community College on Wednesday to listen to and share some of their own suggestions of how to stop drunken driving.

The forum came 10 days after four Santa Fe teens were killed in an accident police say was caused by a drunken driver.

"New Mexico has to get serious about this," said Linda Hummingbird, a high school nurse. "We only get fired up when there's been a tragedy like this."

Like many of the participants, Hummingbird urged the crowed to stop enabling friends and family who drive drunk. She also cited the need for more funding for alcohol treatment.

More than 20 people read out loud the suggestions they'd written on index cards. Most stressed the need for stricter laws from legislators and tougher enforcement by police and judges.

A couple of people suggested New Mexico follow examples from Europe, where in Sweden, first-time DWI offenders receive a mandatory one-year prison sentence.

In Switzerland, another said, passengers of a drunken driver are also charged with DWI whether they've been drinking or not in an effort to encourage passengers to deter friends from drunken driving.

Others asked for better enforcement of vehicle seizure ordinances, which both Santa Fe County and the city of Santa Fe have in place but are only beginning to enforce.

Jacquelyn Helin, a parent at Santa Fe Preparatory School who knew two of the teens, called for judges' records on DWI offenders to be printed in the newspapers.

Some of the suggestions focused on prevention, including more education for children and teens, as well as for all drivers.

One man suggested a mandatory alcohol-awareness class for anyone wanting to get a driver's license.

The event started with a presentation by Richard Roth, executive director of Impact DWI and the forum's coordinator.

In it, Roth cited a decrease in all major categories related to drunken driving in New Mexico. The number of fatalities attributed to alcohol-related crashes has dropped by 36 percent, from 225 in 2002 to 143 last year.

Injuries from alcohol-related crashes are also down, from 2,921 in 2002 to 1,789 in 2008, Roth said.

So far this year, 66 people have been killed in alcohol-related crashes, the same number as this time last year.

Roth asked that in addition to coming up with suggestions for tougher laws, participants also think about ways they can stop DWI. One step, he said, was pledging to not drive drunk. He asked the audience to sign a pledge and take a pledge card with them.

In an earlier meeting Wednesday at City Hall, the Santa Fe County Commission and City Council adopted a joint resolution Wednesday night, agreeing to appoint a "work group" of elected officials to recommend within 60 days "programmatic steps to accelerate community change that will end violence from alcohol and drug abuse" through treatment, outreach and education.

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican. Reporter Julie Ann Grimm also contributed to this report.