A three strikes bill for DUI is currently in the works in California to give judges the power to revoke the driving license of a repeat offender after three DUI’s.

Assemblyman Jerry Hill, the main proponent of the said legislation, sees the bill as a means to get drunk drivers permanently off the road even before they can kill or injure a motorist or pedestrian.

Under the law in California, driving licenses are only revoked because of death or injury caused by the driver. Likewise, the Department of Motor Vehicles only counts convictions from the past 10 years.

Aside from empowering judges to revoke the driver’s license after three DUI convictions, the DMV may also consider the defendant’s entire history of drunk driving in a suspension case.

Opponents of the bill on the other hand, such as the California DUI Lawyers Association, argue that passing Hill’s proposed law will only increase the number of unlicensed drivers on the road as it will not dissuade convicted drivers.

The Three Strikes DUI Bill, if approved and signed by the Congress and the governor will take effect on January 2011.

Every year in the United States, more than 5,000 people die from alcohol-related crashes. According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting

System, as much as 32 percent of all motor vehicle accidents were caused by drunk drivers.

While California has several DUI laws such as the Zero Tolerance Law, Ignition Interlock Devise Law, drunk driving still continues to be a problem and a primary cause of car crash fatalities and injuries.

While it would be interesting to actually see whether or not the law would give rise to more unlicensed drivers on the road, victims of drunk drivers can still go after the drunk driver for damages and proper compensation.

Generally, if the other party in an accident is proven to be drunk, he is also most likely to be considered as liable for any injury suffered by the victim.

Drunk driving victims can recover medical expenses, future medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, disability, loss of quality of life, the present and the future impairment, loss of consortium, and the loss of services.