Across the country, you can be arrested and jailed for having a blood alcohol content of .08% or greater. Generally, this equals about four drinks in an hour for an average 180 pound man. But federal officials have decided this isn’t good enough; they’ve recommended that all states lower their legal limit to .05%, an estimated two drinks in an hour’s time. Their error isn’t in wanting to keep people safe, but in thinking that criminalizing everyone who has a few drinks will result achieve that goal.
According to CNN, the National Transportation Safety Board says that lowering the rate to .05 would save anywhere from 500 to 800 lives each year. It isn’t clear how they arrived at this figure since most alcohol-impaired accidents involve someone who is significantly more intoxicated.
While alcohol is metabolized differently in everyone, lowering the legal limit to .05 would likely make some women subject to arrest after a single drink. This would mean no drink with dinner and certainly no holiday parties.
“In the last 30 years, more than 440,000 people have perished in this country due to alcohol-impaired driving. What will be our legacy 30 years from now?” NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman asked. “If we don’t tackle alcohol-impaired driving now, when will we find the will to do so?”
The recommendation would result in a greater number of arrests; that’s undeniable. But are these people with blood alcohol limits between .05 and .08 really the ones causing the deadly accidents?
Generally, we hear about fatal drunk driving accidents and it isn’t caused by someone who just had dinner with their wife—it’s someone who has been drinking all day or all night. These aren’t casual drinkers who enjoy a glass of wine, they are frequently serious alcoholics. And lowering the level of legal intoxication fo DUI charges to .05 won’t change the likelihood of these very intoxicated people getting behind the wheel.
When confronted with the evidence that lowering the level to .05 could lead to arrests for a single drink, the NTSB says that several factors are at play in determining just how many drinks lead to a blood alcohol level of .05. But they didn’t deny a single drink could put some people over the limit.
Lowering the rate would ensure that nearly anyone who had nearly anything to drink would be subject to arrest. Unlike other criminal offense, drunk driving puts the presumption of innocence on its head. You may not cause and accident or display any poor driving or inability to control your vehicle safely. Perhaps you are even a safer driver after a single drink has relaxed you and lessened your stress levels. But if the rate is lowered, you could be criminalized.
While the effectiveness of swifter and tougher penalties in the prevention of crime is questionable to begin with, the NTSB certainly won’t win any friends with this recommendation. If anything, some have suggested, toughening penalties on repeat offenders or those with alcohol levels over .15 may put a dent in drunk driving deaths.
This proposal goes so far into extreme neo-prohibitionist territory that the most prominent anti-drunk driving group in the county, does not think this should be a priority. What does that say about it?
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