Here’s the case to cut DUI blood-alcohol limit to .05. It may just be a life or death matter
Unless this is the only news(ish) article you read each week, you’ve likely at least seen a headline about the bill that would lower our state’s impaired driving per se Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) level to .05. This is such an obviously good idea that no one could possibly disagree (he says with misplaced confidence.)
Before we go any further, I’ll state my bias — as you might guess, I’m inclined to support things that increase the safety of all road users. We all have our biases, and not everyone shares mine, so let’s start with something we can all agree on. Too many people are killed in impaired driving crashes in our state.
More than half of all traffic fatalities in Washington involve impairment and 32% of those involve alcohol. No matter your political persuasion, that’s unacceptable. We’re seeing this now in Washington’s Legislature, with bipartisan agreement that something needs to be done to reverse the trend of increasing traffic fatalities.
Most of us never drive impaired, but that doesn’t mean DUI laws don’t affect us. If other drivers think it’s OK to be on the road with a .05 BAC, that’s a risk for everyone. At that level, drivers are seven times more likely than a driver with a zero BAC level to get in a fatal crash. Sober road users shouldn’t have to tolerate that risk.
There’s plenty of research showing that lowering the BAC level to .05 works. Examples around the world include many European countries, and in Australia, where they consume a similar amount of alcohol per capita as Americans, but they have a traffic fatality rate of less than half that of the U.S. Closer to home, when Utah lowered its per se limit to .05 (so far, the only state to do so), fatal crashes went down by nearly 20% and incidents involving alcohol impairment decreased by almost 15%. Meanwhile, DUI arrests didn’t go up appreciably. The .05 BAC law prompted drivers to make a conscious decision to not drive impaired.
I mentioned that not everyone is in favor of this bill. When the bill was recently discussed in the Senate’s Law and Justice Committee, many people spoke up to support it, but two people (who represent the alcohol industry) stated their opposition. One representative supported our current threshold, stating that it is “based on science and law enforcement guidance.” It’s true that in 1999 Washington moved from a .10 to a .08 BAC level with the support of science and law enforcement, but for more than a decade the scientific view has been that at .05 BAC even heavy drinkers are impaired at a level that affects their driving, and the federal government has recommended that states adopt a .05 law since 2012. The other representative said, “there is no discernible way to recognize signs of intoxication at .05.” She may believe that’s true about a server’s ability to recognize impairment in a customer, but when it comes to driving, that level of alcohol has a discernible reduction in coordination, ability to visually track moving objects, and response to emergency situations.
Prior to Utah’s passing of the law, there was also opposition, with concerns including tourism and beverage sales. After the law passed those concerns were proven unfounded, as tourism and alcohol sales remained strong. DUI laws aren’t about penalizing people for drinking alcohol. Many countries already have figured this out. In Europe, where most countries already have a .05 BAC law (and some are even lower), people actually drink more than Americans. They just don’t drive afterward.
This story was originally published February 6, 2023 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Here’s the case to cut DUI blood-alcohol limit to .05. It may just be a life or death matter."
