Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Task Force on Driving While Intoxicated and Vehicular Homicide will vote Feb. 22 on the decision to raise penalties for drunken drivers.Jindal’s DWI task force addresses the rampant DWI issue and its components, such as refusing a Breathalyzer test and prosecuting the offenders.Louisiana consistently had more than 800 annual car crashes related to alcohol in last 10 years, while the average number of fatalities because of alcohol per year remains near 400, according to the University’s Highway Safety Research Group.Other states may become the inspiration for new laws against drunken drivers.Policy research on states with lower alcohol-related accidents is being completed by members of the task force and will be presented at the next meeting before votes are cast, said Murphy Painter, chairman of the DWI Task Force and director of the state Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control.  ”The amount of increase in fines and other details will be sorted out at the meeting,” Painter said.Sgt. Kevin Scott, LSU Police Department public information officer, is not confident higher fines will affect the level of road sobriety.”There are many factors that play into why people drink and drive, and it’s hard to say whether higher fines will make a difference or not,” Scott said.Enforcement of the issue is random, which also makes it hard to predict whether the fines will prove successful, Scott said. Police can’t catch every case of impaired driving, which makes enforcement random.The cost of a DWI violation can vary greatly, but the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission uses $2,000 as an average amount owed, Program Coordinator Jamie Ainsworth said in an e-mail.This year’s DWI numbers have not changed much from last year’s, Scott said.”There have been five alcohol-related arrests [around campus] since Jan. 1, and there were four at this time last year,” Scott said.Unique Mason, mass communication junior, doesn’t believe higher fines will make a difference with drunken drivers.”People risk doing illegal things all the time because they don’t think they will get caught,” Mason said.—–Contact Mallory Logan at [email protected]