There’s no legitimate defense of drunken driving. It’s a poor decision under any circumstance. It puts people in danger.

A new Pennsylvania law takes effect next week that should make better decisions a little easier to make.

Senate Bill 553 imposes a fee for refusing to submit to a blood-alcohol test. The General Assembly adopted the law after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 upheld the right of individuals to refuse a blood-alcohol test, even when under arrest for DUI.

The Supreme Court ruling does not mean that refusing a test means dodging a conviction. Defense attorneys advise drivers that the worst thing they can do when stopped for DUI is refuse a blood or breathalyzertest. In Pennsylvania, if you refuse to do either test offered, you will likely lose your license for an additional one year on top of the penalties for the DUI conviction — which you’re not likely to avoid.

If you refuse the alcohol test, the police still can prove that you were driving drunk. They simply need to demonstrate that you were driving, that you consumed alcohol or drugs and that you were “incapable of safe driving.” They can do this by articulating your driving, behavior, appearance or any admissions that you made. They often use phrases like “bloodshot eyes,”“odor of alcohol,”“slurred speech” and “disheveled appearance.”

Under the new law, drivers who refuse a blood-alcohol test but are convicted and lose their license will have to pay a restoration fee of $500 to $2,000 to get their license back. The $500 fee is for a first-time offense; a second offense is $1,000 and a $2,000 fee applies for any subsequent offense.

The new law changes the DUI suspect’s choice: surrender a specimen or demand a warrant: or surrender a specimen or pay a hefty fee to retain your license.

The revision seems to align state regulations more consistently with the maxim of making the right thing to do the easiest thing to do. On the other hand, it’s not difficult anticipating a legal challenge to the DUI law based on simple economics: that individuals with the means to pay the fee won’t be deterred by it, while low-income drivers who depend on their license for work will be penalized too harshly.

If that legal argument proceeds, it should be pursued while keeping in mind that an estimated one-third of Pennsylvania’s 1,300 motor vehicle fatalities per year — about 433 according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — die in wrecks involving one or more impaired drivers; and that these fatalities involve $17 million in medical expenses and $1.58 billion in lost worker productivity — an astronomical net loss of $1.7 billion in one year.