A Santa Fe lawyer who helped draft the state's ignition interlock laws is trying to get his own driving privileges restored so he no longer must use the devices.
William J. Waggoner, 49, says in a petition filed in state District Court last week that he quit drinking after his fourth conviction for drunken driving in 2002 and has had ignition-interlock devices on all his vehicles since then. An ignition interlock prevents a car from being started before the driver blows into the device, which measures breath-alcohol content.
According to online state court records, Waggoner pleaded guilty to a Roswell magistrate to charges of aggravated DWI and reckless driving filed Jan. 9, 2002.
He previously had been charged with DWI in 1984 in Albuquerque, 1992 in Bernalillo, 1993 in Aztec and 1994 in Albuquerque. The 1992 charge was dismissed while he pleaded guilty to the others, according to online records.
In an interview Tuesday, Waggoner described himself as a recovering alcoholic who mentors other alcoholics, has helped write the state ignition-interlock laws and volunteers with anti-DWI groups.
"My name is out there," he said. "I do a lot of work for the community already. I don't hide it. But I don't need it on the front page of the paper."
Told that the story would run, Waggoner initially threatened to withdraw the petition so it would be a "nonstory."
"If you're going to do the story, I'll probably just pull it, and I'll just keep driving with the interlock for the next couple of years," he said. "Here's the deal: I'll keep driving with it anyway. I've got teenage kids and I put them on all my cars. I think the whole world should have them on there."
State District Judge James Hall is to hear Waggoner's request to restore his driving privileges at 8:30 a.m. July 15. According to state law, anyone convicted four times for DWI within 10 years is banned from driving for life, unless they drive with an interlock ignition, but may petition a judge to reinstate their full driving privileges after five years.
Waggoner said he did not petition when he was became eligible in 2007, but did so this month so he could legally drive a rental car and so he does not have to prove each year to the state Motor Vehicle Division that he has interlock-ignition devices in his cars. Waggoner said he knows of no company that offers rental cars with the devices.
Richard Roth, executive director of Impact DWI, said he began lobbying the state Legislature to require interlock devices in 1999. Roth said that in 2002, Waggoner, a former bill drafter for the Legislative Council Service, helped him craft a bill extending interlock options to many drunken drivers. Waggoner also worked on the 2003 and 2005 bills that amended the law. Waggoner is now legal counsel for Impact DWI.
Roth, a retired physics teacher with no previous experience with DWI, said people who have driven drunk might be the best choice to work on laws to prevent it. He said state Sen. Phil Griego, D-San José, who sponsored the interlock bills, credits the devices with keeping him from continuing to drive drunk.
Waggoner, like Griego, "has been a model for turning your life around," Roth said. "Maybe that's the best people to get."
"I never thought this ... would be newsworthy," Waggoner said. "I am not trying to get a judge to undo the law that I wrote. Instead, I'm working within the law that I wrote, and like anybody else who's been doing what they're supposed to be doing, their license can be reinstated."
Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.
