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NTSB Recommends Lower Drunk Driving Threshold Nationwide: 0.05 BAC
Officials for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board have recommended a nationwide lowering of the blood-alcohol level considered safe for operating a car. The threshold is currently 0.08% — the NTSB wants to cut that to 0.05%.
"That's about one drink for a woman weighing less than 120 lbs., two for a 160 lb. man. More than 100 countries have adopted the .05 alcohol content standard or lower, according to a report by the board's staff. In Europe, the share of traffic deaths attributable to drunken driving was reduced by more than half within 10 years after the standard was dropped, the report said. NTSB officials said it wasn't their intention to prevent drivers from having a glass of wine with dinner, but they acknowledged that under a threshold as low as .05 the safest thing for people who have only one or two drinks is not to drive at all. ... Alcohol concentration levels as low as .01 have been associated with driving-related performance impairment, and levels as low as .05 have been associated with significantly increased risk of fatal crashes, the board said."
This is incompatible with an infrastructure that is so hostile towards public transportation (outside of some lucky big cities). I live in some backwater suburb in FL and I can't get to a pub to have a couple of drink with a buddy without incurring an extra 20$ in cab fare? In Europe this was easy, you just hop on the bus/U-Bahn/tram and viola. Also in the suburbs.
All this will result in is more arrests. The average Joe isn't going to know the difference between .08% and .05%; the only result will be a larger probability in jail time for someone who would otherwise be considered fine to drive today. If we're going to change the numbers in this manner, why not just make it 0% and at least be clear about the message: Drink at all, and you'd better be willing to not drive for a couple of hours.
So, right now, there's a huge negative stigma associated with getting a DUI. It's rare enough, and heinous enough, that society views it as a serious mistake.
If you reduce the BAC threshold enough, then getting a DUI will become so common that the negative social stigma will be gone, which will defeat the purpose of having the law to begin with.
Why not make 0.02% BAC universal? I understand that there are practical limits, but should you really be going out for dinner, downing a bottle, and driving home?
(a 750ml bottle of wine over 2 hours for a 180lb person @ 0.08 = legal)
Have a glass of wine or a beer with dinner. Heck, go ahead and have two. But if you're going to drink any more than that DON'T FUCKING DRIVE A CAR.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
The majority of accidents are caused by people well over the insipid .08 B.A.C in the first place. B.A.C. isn't a good indication of driving impairment or base levels of intoxication. You can't really measure something arbitrary like drunkeness with a simple blood test. When you can use BAC as an indication of intoxication, it's already too late. Lowering the threshold isn't going to do anything more than increase the amount of people with DUI's, it won't do a damn bit to prevent accidents or make the roads safer. Some people are a danger on the road sober lets focus on them first.
I got here through a series of tubes
If firearm and drunk driving fatalities only occurred to the people mishandling the firearm or drinking the alcohol, sure. Unfortunately they don't :-(
...get serious about chasing drink driving regardless of the number.....US traffic stops with any probable cause for DUI need to get scientific, every gets to blow in the bag, non of this walk in a straight line, recite the alphabet backwards nonsense. And above all drink-driving needs to be properly stigmatized socially, I was stunned how many people drank and drive when I moved to the US from Europe, folks regularly drink many times the limit and drove when public transport/taxi is a viable alternative
You mean the same episode where it showed being tired or distracted by cell phones or anything else were actually significantly more impairing than the alcohol?
I don't think we should get rid of drunk driving laws by any stretch of the imagination. However, there are already plenty of distracted/reckless driver laws that exist. I just don't see the a need to create specific laws for every single possible way someone can increase their danger while driving.
The world certainly would be entirely safe from driving accidents if nobody was ever allowed to drive. 0% is physically impossible: alcohols are a broad class of naturally occurring organic chemicals, that will be present at some (tiny) level in any human body, even if you have never taken a drink in your life. If you want to permit anyone to drive, then you'll need to set a non-zero limit somewhere; preferably above natural fluctuations in baseline level and measurement error. So, where to set the level? Do you need to check whether the driver has consumed a drink in the last year? Week? Hour? Minute? Rather than setting a useless/impossible "0 is lowest, so it must be best" limit, one should look at *actually available data* to determine how alcohol levels correlate with actual increases in accidents.
P.S.: do you ever stay up an extra 10 minutes at night, to finish reading that book chapter / checking your favorite news site? If you do, do you avoid driving the next day, because you've *knowingly decreased your driving ability* by sleep deprivation? And, if you didn't know before, you do now --- so don't even think about stepping in a car if you've stayed up the least bit past your bedtime.
We need to do the same with sleeping pills, pain pills, lack of sleep, cell phones, paper reading material, makeup, cigarettes (you seen what happens when a driver drops a cigarette in their lap and it rolls down their groin?), caffeine (large amounts can cause lack of focus in some people), benzodiazepines, getting blow jobs from a passenger, people driving home after seeing a dentist in some cases...
Holy shit, I could do this all day...
kids in the car yelling, passengers talking, sign spinners, bill boards, radio advertisements, cops running radar, red light cameras, dashboard instrument panels with their flashing lights, wearing headphones while driving, radios and all the buttons you can fiddle with...
Outlaw them all. Why allow someone to knowingly decrease their ability to drive?
I can assure you, on a real road, people tend to stay a bit more alert after consuming a few drinks.
Well, I'm certainly glad that we've got the accurate scientific evidence of the assurances of an Anonymous Coward to set us straight!
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
GeeZ!!!
Lowering it to the .08 was too LOW to begin with.....
You can blow .08 and not be too impaired to drive...
Good Lord, are we going to let MADD start us back on the road to prohibition next???
But, more to the point the OP was making. Depends on the state you live in.
I asked a lawyer in my state what to do if pulled over after having a few. He said if you know you're at the limit, don't say a damned thing and put your hands out for the cuffs and go quietly. Refuse tests, don't do field sobriety test (that is NOTHING more than evidence gathering). At worst for first offense you'll get reckless driving and maybe suspended license of which you can get permits to drive to work for food, etc.
Tough yes, but better than a DWI on your record.
Like with anything dealing with the cops, first thing to do is shut up, and lawyer up.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I can assure you, on a real road, people tend to stay a bit more alert after consuming a few drinks.
Assure me by citing evidence supporting your case.
peer reviewed studies >>> mythbusters > AC's personal testimony.
Driving dangerously should be the issue, period. We shouldn't need to make five thousand laws for five thousand contexts. If you are reckless and dangerous on the road because of texting, talking on the phone, parenting your children in the back seat, watching videos on your laptop in the passenger seat, or just sheer stupidity or old age -- it should all fall under the same category and impact your license to drive.
The only reason a few items might sensibly be specifically classified and identified is because of the intentional choices that go into them. For example, nobody accidentally drinks and drives or accidentally texts while driving.
There are many things that can impair driving. Kids fighting, dog puking, sun shining in your eyes, messing with the radio, and that's just off the top of my head. Who gives a shit if you can detect small changes in eye movement? Is that going to kill anybody? No? Then stop trying to push Prohibition back down our throats.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
How can this be modded insightful. 100 countries have adopted 0.05 due to the carnage caused by drunk drivers.
Because insight requires a little more thought than "50,000 frenchmen can't be wrong". Try doing an actual risk benefit analysis. How many additional people will we imprison by moving to 0.05 per year? What are the social costs of that? Is it more or less than the cost of losing 800 people a year? Are there ways we could save 800 people per year that cost less? Do those first.
This is the kind of reasoning that needs to go into an insightful comment on the issue. As it is, I doubt anyone has done this.
On second thought, this is the country that thinks so little of mass shootings in schools that they refuse to regulate the access to firearms. Deaths on the road due to drunk drivers is nothing when compared to that.
Actually, mass shootings kill less than 100 people per year. If the NTSB is to be believed, lowering the BAC limit to .05 would save eight times as many lives as if we eliminated all mass shootings in the US. But I'm not sure I believe the NTSB.
But you're right, we do think so little of mass shootings that we refuse to regulate the access to firearms. And we are absolutely correct to do so. 100 deaths per year in a country of 300 million is negligable. You'll save orders of magnitude more lives if you regulate fructose instead of guns.
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