Senate Bill 42, sponsored by Sen. Carlene Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights, would codify a category of drivers - alcohol restricted drivers - who, having once been convicted of driving under the influence, would be charged with a class B misdemeanor (a maximum six-month jail term and a $1,000 fine) if they were caught within a two-year period with any detectable amount of alcohol in their systems. A second offense would extend the zero-tolerance period to 10 years.

The bill also would allow police to impound a vehicle involved in any suspected alcohol-related offense and it would slap a lifetime alcohol ban on drivers convicted of a felony DUI - usually earned on a third DUI conviction or if anyone over the legal blood-alcohol limit limit of .08 causes serious injury or death.

Refusal to submit to a Breathalyzer test would bring a driver an automatic not-a-drop restriction for five years; a second refusal would mean a 10-year restriction.

Walker says her bill would do away with second chances for anyone convicted of a DUI and also serve to prod suspect drivers to submit to a breath, blood or urine test to determine their blood-alcohol level.

We believe the changes are reasonable, as far as they go, but it is doubtful that they will deter the hardcore drinking driver. Nationally, about a third of DUI arrests involve repeat offenders (29 percent in Utah) and more than half of drivers whose licenses have been revoked or suspended for driving drunk continue to drink and drive.

In Utah, about a quarter of all fatal traffic accidents are alcohol- or drug-related - a relatively constant number since 1993 - and in 23 percent of those fatal accidents in 2003 the badly inebriated driver had a blood-alcohol level above 0.20 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

It is the drunks who insist on getting behind the wheel who pose the greatest risk to themselves and other drivers and who make motor vehicle accidents the chief cause of death among Americans between the ages of 4 and 34. More than 17,000 died in 2003, with some 500,000 injured in alcohol-related accidents.

Again, Walker's legislation is a worthwhile attempt to address the recidivism of so many drinking drivers. But a better solution, in our view, would be one being adopted by some states to punish repeat offenders: Make a second DUI within five years of the first a felony with a mandatory jail term, loss of license for two years and fine of up to $5,000.

One DUI is too many. Two is unacceptable.