Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four drunk-driving bills on September 25. His office’s announcement describes stiffer criminal penalties for repeat offenders, longer revocations and ignition-interlock requirements, more DMV points for fatal crashes, and license revocations of up to six years for drivers with four or more priors.
All of that is true in a technical sense. But a bill signing is a staged event, and the chaptered text is what actually becomes law. Reading the four bills themselves shows that some of the headline changes have significant conditions attached, including one that doesn’t take effect until 2031.
Braun’s Law: One Warning, Narrower Than It Began
Senate Bill 907 by Sen. Bob Archuleta carries the package’s name. It honors Braun Levi, an 18-year-old from Pacific Palisades who was killed in May 2025 by a suspected repeat drunk driver while walking in Manhattan Beach, according to the governor’s office.
The key change involves the Watson advisement. Under Vehicle Code 23593, a court must give this formal warning to someone convicted of DUI. It tells them that impaired driving is dangerous to human life, and that if they drive impaired again and someone dies, they can be charged with murder. That warning matters in court because it helps prosecutors prove implied malice, the mental state required for a second-degree murder charge instead of manslaughter.
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The gap SB 907 closes is plea bargaining. Until now, a DUI defendant who pleaded down to a different charge could avoid ever receiving the warning. The chaptered bill now requires the court to give the advisement whenever a defendant pleads guilty or no contest to a different or lesser offense in place of a DUI charge.
What’s missing from the final bill is just as notable. The introduced version would have required the warning even when a court dismissed a DUI charge outright. It would also have added vehicular manslaughter to the state’s violent-felony list, which feeds into Three Strikes sentencing. It would have created a three-year sentencing enhancement for each prior felony DUI within 10 years and allowed full consecutive sentences for each victim of a drunk-driving manslaughter, a provision called “Kolya and Anya’s Law.” None of that survived. The introduced bill required a two-thirds vote. The chaptered version needs only a simple majority, which is consistent with removing the Three Strikes change.
The part of SB 907 that remained, besides the plea warning, targets hit-and-run. If someone flees a crash that injured a person within 10 years of a prior DUI, reckless-driving-with-alcohol, or intoxicated vehicular manslaughter conviction, prosecutors can now charge a felony of two, three, or four years in state prison. If the crash caused death or permanent serious injury, the felony range increases to three, four, or five years. This matters because leaving the scene is a known strategy for impaired drivers who expect to be sober by the time police locate them. The law now makes that choice much riskier for anyone with a DUI record.
AB 1546: A New Rung on the Felony Ladder
Assemblymember Nick Schultz’s bill makes the most significant immediate change to criminal penalties. Until now, a third DUI within 10 years was punished as a misdemeanor with 120 days to a year in county jail. Under the enrolled text, that offense becomes a wobbler, meaning prosecutors can charge it as either a misdemeanor or a felony carrying 16 months, two years, or three years under the county-jail felony sentencing system. The fine remains $390 to $1,000. The court still takes the driver’s license and the DMV still revokes it.
The fourth-offense tier stays a wobbler. What’s new is the fifth tier: a DUI within 10 years of four or more prior convictions becomes a straight felony with no misdemeanor option. The bill also adjusts the add-on penalties for driving with a child under 14 in the car, so they match the new structure where those offenses are still charged as misdemeanors.
Wet reckless pleas already count as priors in these lookback periods, and the new felony tiers make that matter sooner. Plenty of people who accepted a wet reckless years ago think it made their DUI go away. It didn’t, and under the new structure it can push a later arrest into felony territory sooner.
The Insurance Catch Buried in AB 1546
AB 1546 also amends Insurance Code section 1861.025, which defines eligibility for California’s Good Driver Discount under Proposition 103. The change itself is a conforming edit: it adds felony convictions under the newly amended section 23546 to the list of disqualifying offenses, since that section can now produce a felony.
For drivers, the useful point is what this section already said. Reading the amended text shows that any DUI conviction under sections 23152 or 23153 disqualifies a driver from the Good Driver Discount for 10 years from the date of application, not three. The three-year window applies to ordinary moving violations and at-fault crashes. A DUI stays on your insurance for a decade, well after the criminal case, probation, and DUI classes are over. Probation ends and the classes finish. The discount stays gone.
AB 1685: One More Point
Assemblymember Tom Lackey’s first bill raises the DMV point assessment from two to three for convictions of vehicular manslaughter and gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, according to the governor’s summary. A driver convicted of killing someone while drunk already faces license revocation and prison, so an additional point on their record is mostly a symbolic correction.
AB 1687: The Six-Year Revocation Arrives in 2031, and Only for Injury Crashes
This is where the press release and the bill differ most. The governor’s summary describes allowing a license revocation of up to six years for drivers with four or more qualifying convictions in 10 years. The chaptered law, which is formally titled Irene’s Law, is narrower in two important ways.
First, it applies only when the current offense is a DUI that caused bodily injury to someone other than the driver, charged under section 23153. A fifth DUI with no injury does not trigger the 72-month period.
Second, the new section 13352.7 doesn’t take effect until January 1, 2031. Anyone arrested between now and then falls under the existing rules.
When the law does take effect, the driver loses their license for 72 months. Reinstatement requires completing a 30-month DUI program if one is available in their county, or an 18-month program if not, plus filing proof of insurance. After 12 months, the driver can apply for a restricted license, but only by agreeing to keep a certified ignition interlock device on their vehicle for 72 months, along with meeting the program and insurance requirements.
There’s also a drafting inconsistency. The bill’s digest and title use the word “revocation,” but the operative subsection says the privilege “shall be suspended for 72 months.” In California, suspension and revocation are different legal statuses with different reinstatement procedures. Defense attorneys will likely raise that discrepancy before 2031 arrives.
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AB 1546 also contains alternate versions of three Vehicle Code sections that would take effect in 2031, but only if a separate bill, AB 1830, was also enacted before it. Those versions would allow judges to deny restricted licenses to drivers they consider a public-safety risk. Whether they ever apply depends entirely on that other bill.
When It Starts
None of the four bills includes an urgency clause, so the standard rule applies: most of the package takes effect January 1, 2027. AB 1546’s own text anticipates that date in its operative-date language. AB 1687 is the exception and waits until 2031.
For context, the governor’s office says the CHP has made more than 50,900 DUI arrests so far this year. It has also run 75 sobriety checkpoints and 154 saturation patrols, and in July it awarded more than $41 million in cannabis-tax-funded grants to 183 organizations for impaired-driving enforcement and training.
Practical Takeaways
- Count your priors carefully. Starting in 2027, a third DUI within 10 years can be charged as a felony. The 10-year window is measured from violation dates, and wet reckless pleas count as priors.
- A plea bargain no longer skips the warning. If you plead a DUI down to a lesser charge after January 1, you’ll receive the Watson advisement in open court. It will be on the record in any future case.
- Leaving the scene is now much worse with a DUI history. A hit-and-run with injuries within 10 years of a DUI conviction can now be charged as a state-prison felony.
- Plan for a 10-year insurance impact. A DUI removes the Good Driver Discount for a decade under Prop 103’s rules. Before buying a car, get insurance quotes, because the premium may cost more than the car payment.
- Interlock time is getting longer. For the worst injury cases beginning in 2031, an interlock device will be required for six years. These devices require a clean breath sample to start the car and random retests while driving. If you rely on a vehicle for work, that’s a daily factor for years.
Which of the four will actually keep a repeat offender off the road: a felony charge on a third DUI, a plea warning that can’t be skipped, a harsher hit-and-run penalty, or a six-year revocation that doesn’t start until 2031?