Down a long, dark highway about an hour west of New Orleans is a town called Sorrento. When, on spring break, my friends and I got lost trying to find the somewhat larger town of Thibodoux, we saw firsthand just how liberal drunk driving laws are in Louisiana.

First, we made the mistake of walking up to a very tall pick-up truck and asking the two tank top-clad young men inside for directions to Thibodoux. Between pulls on their 40s of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the driver drawled “you’re a long way from Thibodoux.”

No … really?

We decided to go into the E-Z Serve and ask for directions instead. As we entered the store, we had to dodge six teenagers who were loading into a Geo Metro with a case of beer. As we watched them drive away, already popping the tops off the cans, I was almost scared to get back on the road, even if it was to get the hell away from Sorrento.

But it wasn’t just Sorrento, it was the whole state. When we made it to Thibodoux, we saw there were drive-thru frozen Daiquiri bars on every street. In New Orleans, open containers of alcohol are allowed everywhere, including cars — as long as the driver isn’t drinking.

Talk about culture shock! After living in Ames, where one can get a public intoxication charge on any street corner, it was wild to see people sipping on Hurricane cocktails as they walked down Bourbon Street without nervously glancing around for police cars.

While all this drinking freedom doesn’t necessarily lead to drunken driving, it certainly doesn’t decrease the number of drunk people on the highways. New Orleans does have a trolley and taxi cabs that I hope drunk people take advantage of, but I’m sure there are a lot of people, both tourists and locals, who drive home drunk each night.

The number of drunk driving accidents in the United States is startling. A January article in the Des Moines Register said drunken drivers caused 14,000 accidents every hour in 1993. According to FBI data, for each drunken driving arrest made in the U.S., there are 82 accidents caused by drunken drivers.

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad has responded to these statistics by seeking to make Iowa’s already tough drunken driving laws even tougher. In an effort to cut the number of accidents caused by drunken driving in Iowa, Branstad is pushing two main changes to current laws.

First, Branstad would like to change the blood alcohol concentration level for being considered legally drunk from .10 to .08. Second, the governor wants to increase the amount of time drunken drivers who cause deaths and serious injuries can spend in jail. He wants to increase maximum sentences to 25 years for causing a death and five years for causing a serious injury.

Iowa is taking a stand against drunken drivers, yet there are still states like Louisiana that refuse to tighten drinking and drunken driving laws. Why is that? Is it because cities like New Orleans are popular spots for tourists who want to hear a good blues band, flash for some beads and drink wherever they want to? Sure, tourism brings a lot of money to New Orleans, but I wonder how citizens of the city feel about the number of drunken drivers there are on the street.

What good does it do to have tough drunken driving laws in one state if other states have loose laws or don’t enforce their current laws? It’s fine if you want to stay in Iowa your whole life, heading back and forth on Interstate 80, but head across that state line and you may be putting your life in danger.

It’s time for a summit. Our government needs to get together and come up with drunken driving laws that exist across state lines. While a nationwide set of drunken driving laws may not be as strict as those Iowans would like for their home state, it would be an improvement over current legislature in states like Louisiana. Then states like Iowa could impose more strict regulations onto the national standard.

One thing would be for sure, if a national standard for drunken driving were established, those tattooed, dirty tank-topped idiots in Sorrento would think twice about drinking and driving. Or at least change into T-shirts.

Erin Walter is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.