New York moves maddeningly slowly on critical matters —if it moves at all—but state lawmakers this week did pass legislation that cracks down on drunken driving in two useful ways.

The broader of the measures requires that ignition interlock devices be installed in cars driven by anyone convicted of driving while intoxicated, including first-time offenders. The more targeted measure raises the stakes for driving drunk with a passenger age 15 and younger in the vehicle. Instead of a misdemeanor, the offense will now be a Class E Felony, raising the maximum jail time to four years in state prison instead of a year in county jail.

The bill passed unanimously in the Assembly on Tuesday following negotiations between the governor, Senate and Assembly, with the Senate taking it up the next day.

It’s an important bill that will help keep intoxicated drivers off the road. The interlock device requires a driver to blow into a Breathalyzer-type device before the car can be started. Drivers will be required to pay the $60-$70 per month cost of the devices and will have to have one in every car they drive. Mothers Against Drunk Driving reports that in states where ignition interlocks have been installed, repeat drunken driving has been reduced by 64 percent.

As to intoxicated drivers with children in their cars, we’re not sure how dissuasive the new law will be, since alcohol impairs judgment. It could help, though, and it surely won’t hurt. What is more, with two recent crashes in New York in which children were killed while riding with adults who had been drinking, the bill takes appropriate notice of the problem. The punishment will now fit the crime.

Those two cases in which children were killed—one in Westchester County and one in Manhattan—certainly influence passage of these measures, but it’s hard not to think that the state’s failing budget also played into it. The Assembly rarely passes bills that toughen penalties on crime. Why now? Perhaps because legislators need something to mollify the state’s increasingly angry taxpayers who can’t help but notice that lawmakers are refusing, thus far, to take any responsible steps to balance the budget. This gives them some-thing to talk about.

If that takes some of the shine off the bills, though, it does nothing to detract from their impact and appropriateness. Indeed, Albany has dragged its feet on toughening DWI laws, and there is still more to do. But with this measure, New York becomes only the second state, after Arizona, to impose felony stakes on drunken drivers transporting children, and most other states require ignition interlocks only for drivers with very high blood-alcohol readings or leave it to a judge’s discretion.

Lawmakers have done well for New Yorkers with this bill. Now they need to do the same with the budget.