KALISPELL - When Greg Barkus roared out of the August night and ran his speedboat into the cliffs on Flathead Lake's northeastern shore, he wasn't necessarily alone behind the wheel.

His hand, some say, was joined on the throttle by the firm grip of Montana culture, a way of life with a strong tradition of drinking and driving.

"Montana's heritage of drinking is absolutely pervasive," said Brenda Simmons. "You can't live in Montana and not be touched by it."

Consider:

The defendant, Barkus (whose blood alcohol content registered twice the legal limit, a finding his attorney has challenged), has a previous arrest for driving under the influence.

The prosecutor's deputy attorney has a previous arrest for DUI.

The original judge's ex-husband - who was city attorney in a nearby town - has a previous arrest for DUI.

Even Barkus' own defense attorney has a previous DUI arrest. The lawyer's case, however, was dismissed, in part because the arresting officer was not available to testify - he had been killed by a drunken driver.

"To have that many people involved whose personal or professional lives have been touched by DUI, that really says something about who we are as a state," said Ken Peterson.

Peterson is a state lawmaker, a Republican from Billings, and he sits on an interim legislative committee charged with finding solutions to Montana's drunken-driving problems. The committee has been hearing a lot from Simmons, who heads a group attempting to change the very ways Montanans think about drink.

The state, she said, ranks first in the nation for the number of alcohol-related fatal wrecks per miles driven, and although people "like to make a divide, and like to think only the down-and-out have alcohol problems, that simply isn't the case. We see the same kinds of problems at every socio-economic level."

Consider:

The Carbon County judge arrested for DUI, or the judge from Ravalli County, or Custer County. The commissioner from Flathead County, or the one from Beaverhead County. The Flathead probation officer, or the Billings bus driver, or Miss Montana herself.

Late in 2008, Simmons contacted a Montana judge to ask about her group - the Montana Community Change Project - getting an audience to talk about DUI sentencing. They had to chat in the morning, because that afternoon the judge had to appear in court on a DUI charge. It was his second such arrest.

Col. Mike Tooley of the Montana Highway Patrol has called it a "Wild West mentality," saying people here consider drinking and driving their "Montana birthright."

Consider:

After Barkus' wreck, a reader posted this comment to a local newspaper's Web site: "I don't see any victims in this serious situation. Everyone was consenting adults in their adult night out."

Another reader wrote: "I sure liked it better in the old days. If you got drunk with your friends, and someone got hurt that was with you, but no one else did, and the people with you didn't have a problem with it, there were no charges filed. Whatever happened to people keeping their noses out of other people's business?"

What happened, Simmons said, was a whole lot of innocent people who have been maimed and killed thanks to someone else's business.

Consider again:

Michael Haynes, the Montana Highway Patrol trooper, killed by a drunken driver (and so unable to follow through in the DUI case of Barkus' attorney); or Missoula city prosecutor Judy Wang, likewise killed by a reportedly drunken driver.

"Our state culture has been this way for a long time," Rep. Peterson said. "As I grew up in Montana, I saw - just like everyone else - that drinking and driving is accepted. I'm an attorney, and a legislator, and I know many attorneys and legislators who drink too much and then go out and drive, because that's what the culture is here."

Peterson has no position on Barkus' accident; he wants no part in that fray. That a fellow lawmaker (Barkus is a Republican state senator) is charged with three felonies is sad, Peterson said, but not a topic upon which he dwells.

He is, however, thinking a whole lot about drinking and driving in general, and suspects his interim committee will come into the next Legislature with a whole host of solid suggestions. The three-term veteran says increasing penalties will not suffice; "we need to change the penalties."

He likes the idea of offenders installing an "interlock," a device that locks a car's ignition until the driver blows into an alcohol-sensitive tube. And he likes the idea of making it illegal to loan your car to someone convicted of DUI. He's also interested in stamping driver's licenses with a DUI alert, so those convicted cannot buy alcohol. And he'd consider making it a crime to refuse a breath test.

"I'm ready to help in any way I can," agreed Mike Phillips, a Bozeman Democrat who works with Peterson in the state House. "The hard-drinking Montana tradition has worn itself out, and it needs to change."

The sheer number and variety of people involved in Barkus' case who have been touched - directly or indirectly - by drunken driving "illustrates vividly that this is a real problem," Phillips said. "If notable members of our community are so obviously connected to the issue, then imagine how it connects to the lives of everyone else in the state."

Phillips' own family was hit by a drunken driver, and he's seen too many neighbors - both high-profile and low-profile - make the same mistake.

"I don't know how many of our community leaders need to be involved before we demand something better," he said.

Up in Flathead County, where a former commissioner earned himself two DUIs while in office, his local political party finally went so far as to say it did not condone drunken driving. But it stopped short of actively condemning it, or asking the politician to step down.

That message - that there are no real consequences, that it's illegal but somehow acceptable - must change, Simmons said, if social standards are ever to change.

"It's not enough to sit on the sidelines anymore," she said. "People are going to have to step up and take a stand."

Recent events, she believes, have inched the state toward a "tipping point" where "people are angry enough to speak out publically, and to demand some social consequences. The very fact that the interim committee was even formed by the Legislature shows that attitudes are shifting."

Peer pressure, she said, can be far more effective than laws, and together the two can change culture. Sure, choosing to drink and drive is an individual choice, she said, but individual behavior is nearly always influenced by cultural messages. Just ask any advertiser.

Or "just look at cigarettes, and the Marlboro Man," Peterson said. "We've completely changed the way we as a culture look at smoking. There's no reason we can't do the same with drinking and driving. They've done it in other states, and we can do it here."

Laws send messages, Peterson said; although Montana was one of the last states to ban open containers in vehicles, it still allows them in boats.

Leaders, he said, follow culture and culture follows leaders, and "we as leaders need to set an example and be vocal about what's acceptable and what's not. This is serious stuff. Serious, serious, serious."

Serious enough that some 13,000 Americans are killed each year in alcohol-related crashes. Serious enough that Trooper Haynes' wife is raising their two children on her own, now.

"That's a terribly important message to hear," Phillips said. "Freedoms come with obligations. The freedom to drive comes with the obligation to stay sober. That's not a partisan issue. That's a very personal issue, for all of us."

"Some of my colleagues in Helena," he added, "they say a tool like the interlock infringes on people's freedom. Well, what about my freedom, what about my right, my freedom to drive on Montana roads with some amount of assurance that the guy coming at me isn't blind drunk? What about that freedom?"

That freedom, Simmons said, is possible - but only if the state's residents "band together to demand better, and to create a cultural environment that is not conducive to drinking and driving.

"If we can do that," she said, "we can finally start to get ahead of the curve."