There’s no arguing against measures that would help keep drunk and drinking drivers off the road in Pennsylvania, and state legislators are on the brink of taking a step forward in that fight.

The House on Monday approved the legislation by an overwhelming 193-2 vote. The bill would mandate that ignition interlocks — a device that requires drivers to blow into a tube and prove they aren’t drunk before their vehicle will start — be used by first-time offenders whose blood alcohol level was at least .10 — slightly above the .08 blood alcohol level current law defines as being intoxicated.

The Senate has already approved an earlier version so it seems destined for a quick trip to the desk of Gov. Tom Wolf, who should sign the legislation into law immediately. Wolf, according to a spokesman, supports the law.

The legislation is a step forward for Pennsylvania, where lax and loophole-ridden DUI laws permit serial offenders to jeopardize the safety of others with relative impunity. Defendants are allowed to remain on the roads while they await trial on DUI charges, and a 2009 state Supreme Court ruling has pulled the teeth from DUI laws targeting repeat offenders.

Essentially the ruling rewards serial drunk drivers and penalizes prosecutors for allowing defendants to plead guilty to multiple DUI arrests at one time. Strings of DUI charges are treated as first-time offenses, circumventing changes made in 2003 that were meant to strengthen the state’s DUI laws.

At that time, lawmakers lowered blood alcohol level requirements and increased jail time for DUI offenders, and the effects have been marked. In 2014 Pennsylvania recorded 10,550 alcohol-related crashes and 333 alcohol-related traffic deaths, according to PennDOT — the lowest in five years. The department also reported that driver deaths among a key age group — 16-to-25-year-olds — most involved in alcohol-related driver fatalities were trending downward over the same period.

That’s good, but not good enough. In Pennsylvania, one person is killed every day in an alcohol-related traffic crash; 20 people are injured. And the bottom line is that if you’re arrested for DUI in Pennsylvania, you’re far more likely to end up driving drunk again than you are in most other states.

A 2014 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that about one-in-four drunk drivers nationally was a repeat offender. In Pennsylvania, that figure is nearly one-in-two, according to a 2014 review of PennDOT statistics by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In Butler County, 117 people died in vehicle crashes between 2010 and 2014; 32 of those fatal wrecks were alcohol-related, according to PennDOT data.

The bottom line is clear: Pennsylvania needs stricter penalties for those who repeatedly drive drunk, and it needs to give prosecutors and judges more tools to deal with repeat offenders.

Requiring ignition interlocks after a driver’s first DUI conviction is an obvious first step. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say studies show DUI rearrests fall by two-thirds once the devices become mandatory — and they should be mandatory for all DUI convictions, regardless of blood alcohol level.