By GARRY RAYNO, InDepthNH.org

CONCORD — Refusing a breath test for alcohol or using a cell phone while driving will be more costly for drivers after House action Thursday.

The House approved two bills that were the work of the governor’s highway safety council, which sought to improve the state’s worst-in-the-nation status for refusing breathalyzer tests when stopped for suspected drunk driving.

The council also seeks to remind young drivers that using a handheld mobile device while you are driving is dangerous after fatal accidents related to cell phone use by young drivers jumped 233 percent.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte pushed both bills which passed the House with comfortable margins. 

Senate Bill 620, which increases the length of administrative license revocation for refusing the breath test, has to go back to the Senate due to changes the House made, but Senate Bill 649 which increases the fines for using a handheld device while driving will go to the governor for her signature.

SB 620 will increase administrative license revocation from six months to nine months, under the House’s changes, which is down from the 12 months the safety council recommended.

Currently the state has the highest refusal rate in the country, which last year was about 75 percent.

Supporters of the bill say attorneys tell drivers to refuse the breathalyzer test because the time is shorter for refusing it than it is if you take it and are found guilty of driving under the influence.

“This high refusal rate is not a matter of civil liberties, but of rational economic choice: under current law, a driver is statistically incentivized to refuse a test to withhold evidence, as the penalty for refusal is often lighter or shorter than the penalty for a conviction based on evidence,” said Rep. Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, the chair of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. “The committee recommends the 9-month suspension as a vital first step to signal that the state will no longer tolerate the strategic obstruction of the legal process.”

The nine month penalty would align with the mandatory minimum for loss of license for a DWI conviction.

“While 9 months improves the status quo,” Roy said, “the committee recognizes that a 12-month suspension, as originally passed by the Senate, is the true threshold for a functional system.”

Earlier this month Ayotte said she did not object to lowering the administrative revocation to nine months.

“Obviously the initial bill wanted to double the time (from six months to a year for refusal) but the nine months will be a significant improvement because right now there really is no difference between refusing the test or taking the test,” Ayotte said at a press conference earlier this week. “The word is out on the street for that, right…(defense lawyers advise people to) refuse to take the test because there is no real reason not to. So increasing it to nine months is a significant step forward…and by the way it is really important to point out that if you are not intoxicated why wouldn’t you take the test.”

Noting the state had the highest refusal rate in the country, the governor said, “The evidence is very clear on this that we should do the right thing to protect people on our roads from intoxicated drivers.”

Opponents said the bill does away with a person’s constitutional right not to self incriminate and has an assumption of guilt and not the standard of innocent until proven guilty.

The bill passed on a 259-94 vote.

SB 649 would increase the fines for using a handheld mobile device while driving and would establish a tiered penalty system based on the number of offenses in a two-year period and whether it involves an accident.

The lowest fine would be $250, up from $100, but would be $500 if an accident is involved.

The third offense would be a 30-day license suspension and a fine of either $750 or $1,000 if an accident resulted.

Roy said the existing penalties are insufficient to change driver behavior, as distracted driving remains a primary cause of preventable accidents.

“In 2024, there was a staggering 233 percent increase in young driver fatalities,” Roy noted, adding the Office of Highway Safety identifies distracted driving as one of the “top three” factors in these preventable adolescent deaths. Traffic deaths in New Hampshire increased by 42 percent between 2014 and 2024, he said, with safety officials attributing this rise to a combination of increased speed and distracted driving.

Rep. Buzz Scherr, D-Portsmouth, tried unsuccessfully to table the bill saying it does nothing that is not already in the reckless driving statute.

But Roy noted reckless driving is a criminal charge while the cell phone violations are not.

The bill passed on a 232-123 vote.

Recycled Paint

The House failed to override Ayotte’s veto of House Bill 451, which would have established a stewardship program to recycle old paint cans and paint.

The program, which many other states use, is run by the paint manufacturing industry through a non-profit organization that collects the materials and adds the costs onto the price for the product but leaves pricing up to retailers.

Program supporters said it is environmentally protective, while reducing hazardous waste disposal costs for communities and more convenient for residents who don’t have to wait for their community’s hazardous collection day.

The prime sponsor of the bill, Rep. Karen Ebel, D-New London, said the bill sailed through the House and was passed by the Senate on bipartisan votes but was vetoed by Ayotte after an outside group became involved misrepresenting what the bill would do.
Ayotte echoed Americans for Prosperity, a Koch Foundation organization that claimed the bill would be a tax on paint, although the state would have to collect the money for its own use to be a tax, which it does not.

Ebel said the bill is very similar to the state’s mercury collection system which has been in place for years and is not a tax or a part of any state bureaucracy.

Under the bill, the people who use paint pay the costs, those who do not use paint do not, unlike hazardous waste days which the entire community pays for through property taxes, she said.

The state has been embroiled in landfill battles for years, Ebel said, with the constant worry over toxic leachate ending up in the groundwater and in people’s drinking water.

“Let’s do something better with our paint than dumping it,” she said.

But Rep. Ross Berry, R-Weare, backed the governor’s veto saying it acts like a tax, and he implied the organization running the program was nefarious, which Ebel denied.

“When the government forces an extra charge into the purchase price of a product, regular people know what that is. And if this program was such a great idea, why legislate that sellers must hide the cost?” Berry said. “This is how affordability gets chipped away in Concord, not with one giant tax hike, but with hidden fees folded into the cost of everyday life.”

The 186-169 failed to meet the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.

The House also failed to override the governor’s veto of House Bill 349 which would have allowed optometrists to perform three ophthalmic laser procedures.

The 145-206 vote failed to meet the two-thirds needed for an override.

The House also killed House Bill 1589 which the Senate had changed to lengthen the terms of county officials such as attorney or registrar of deeds from two to four-years in Belknap and Merrimack counties.

The bill was killed on a 287-65 vote.

(InDepthNH Senior Reporter Paula Tracy contributed to this report.)

Garry Rayno may be reached at garry.rayno@yahoo.com.