Have to agree with some of what Dixon is saying. The guy who has 2 or 3 beers isn’t the guy out there killing people when he gets behind the wheel. Statistically the DUI laws we have in place now have worked. I don’t think lowering the limit any further will lower the death rate any.
I don’t worry much about drunk drivers much. Even though I know it is I problem it never kept me off the road. But I have pretty much stopped riding my motorcycle because of cell phone talkers and texters. You want to implement some legislation go after these people.
so, while it’s true that the guys getting truly trashed are causing most of the deaths they are by no means causing all or even an overwhelming majority of them.
So, what’s to say the other half accidents were caused by inebriation? Accidents happen and people get killed all the time. I don’t think it is safe to assume that someone with a .08 limit gets in an accident and kills someone that the alcohol was necessarily to blame.
You have to be really careful with tests like this. They are worded to make a case and a point but that point may not be the actual cause of the issue.
Okay, sure, it’s possible that none of the other 40 whatever percent of ‘alcohol related’ traffic deaths were totally unrelated to the alcohol. For that matter there is no reason to think that the ones with >.15 BAC were in any way affected by the alcohol. However there is VERY strong evidence that being inebriated interferes with ones ability to operate machinery safely. and my point stands I think that people do ge tkilled because someone with a .05 or .06 or some stupid kid with a .03 for that matter did something they might well have not done if they were fully in control of there faculties.
Agreed that there is no evidence either way. if you blood alc. limit is over the legal limit even if you are sitting at a stop sign and get rear ended by someone on their cell phone you get blamed for the accident.
Obviously when people do get drunk they are not as safe behind the wheel, but I don’t think it is wise to assume that someone at .06 is necessarily “inebriated”. And I’d need to see a more detailed analysis than what has been posited before I will change my stance.
I’m just not going to jump up and down with joy and indignation at the first mention of newly proposed law that restricts my freedoms in a way that seems over the top. I rarely go out and drink but at the rate it’s going I won’t even be able to test taste a beer at my own brewery and get behind the wheel.
I did a little quick research. When the law dropped from 0.10 to 0.08 a study (insert eye roll emoticon) found the drop in drivers with 0.10 or greater in fatal crashes to decrease by 6%. That was right after the laws changed in some states.
I found a neat 1999 analysis from CT (more eye roll emoticons).
49% of fatalities in motor vehicles has zero alcohol in their system. So sober drivers.
3% were in the 0.01 to 0.04 range
5% in the 0.05 to 0.10 range
So 57% of all traffic fatalities involved legal amounts of alcohol to zero alcohol
Fast forward to 2010 and the NTSB found 75% of fatal crashes involving drunk drivers had BAC more than twice the legal limit.
You simply are not going to stop those drivers with a change to the BAC.
Nebraska has an interesting fact sheet. 18% of alcohol impaired drivers are under 21. So lemme get this straight, we have a law which states zero alcohol until 21 (in most states) and a certain BAC. Those laws are being broken so changing a limit and ultimately changing a law is going to stop the law from being broken? That’s the kind of thinking that will get you elected! http://www.transportation.nebraska.gov/safetysummit/2012/presentations/3-Fatal-Crashes-Alcohol.pdf
I don’t condone drunken driving whatsoever, but I would take my chances any day next to a driver @ .08 who is paying attention, versus one of the 18 year old girls who nearly take me out weekly while texting evidently LONG sentences without even bothering to look up while in mid-sentence. Texting while driving is an epidemic level problem that seems to get enforced rarely. And the penalties are so much lighter as compared to DWI, it’s a joke. If anything, I find it more dangerous. Where is the real deterrent?
Penalties in the US do little IMO to deter crime. You see the sign driving down the road which says, “Penalties Increased Ahead” or “Fines Doubled In Work Zones”. Sometimes it even tells you how much. Do you slow down because of a penalty or because you don’t want to kill someone? Do you slow down at all? (Rhetorical question, but as I drive 40K miles per year I do feel qualified to answer few slow down at all.)
I do think that the DUI limit of .08% is legally fair and I do think it cuts down on people drinking and driving, so in that case it is a penalty that works. But I think going to .05% is just going to punish people who have had a beer or two with dinner and then drove their kid to his soccer game and got into a routine fender bender.
Gotta call you on your logic there. I’m learning to bike in a city at the moment; the close “fender benders” have be scary enough to really ponder if I’m flirting with my own survival. Scares the **** out of me when it happens.
Also, a “beer or two” implies 4.5%-5.5% when most beer enthusiasts are drinking 6%-11% (imo, of course).
As I get older, I focus more on responsibility when I am out. I went out for my best friend’s bachelor party last weekend. Due to circumstances, I had to drive home at the end of the night. Because of this, I was really excited to see Avery’s 3point5 on tap at the Falling Rock in Denver. A low alcohol session beer like that made it easier to have 3 beers over the course of the entire evening (5 hours). Of course, I did also take the train most of the way home. But I would like to see more places have session beers on tap because of this.
Trust me, as a motorcyclist I know what you are talking about, but that is unrelated to my comment. I’m not implying that a beer or two with dinner could cause a fender bender. I’m saying that at the proposed .05% limit that you can be in a mild altercation that isn;t even your fault and go to jail for it when your motorskills are absolutely fine. So your not calling me on anything.
I don’t disagree that someone at .15 should not be behind the wheel. But, the article also pointed out that lowering the legal limit from 0.1 to 0.08 hasn’t done much to reduce drunk driving related fatalities, and the move from 0.08 to 0.05 likely would not either. I agree with the statement made in the article by the alcoholic-beverage and restaurant industries that focusing on repeat offenders and those who are clearly above the legal limit would be more effective than targeting someone who had a pint at dinner.
The government claims they want to lower the limit to save lives and protect us from ourselves, but their true agenda has always been zero tolerance and Big Brother controlling yet another aspect of our lives.
All these numbers are pretty meaningless to me, I honestly have no idea what the difference of .05 and .08 feels like. I know when I’m buzzed and I know when I’m drunk and I certainly know when I’m wasted, but how that correlates to the numbers is beyond me.
I’d really like to get a breathalizer at some point and test it out over a few hours to get a better understanding of it. In fact, maybe that should become part of the driver training curriculum. I could see going to a training class at an airport or somewhere similar, drinking X Alchohol over X Time and then driving thru a road course, or even a simulator, to test reaction times at different drunkenness levels. I know I’ve seen this done on TV but maybe everyone should get to do it.
This leads me to another aspect of this whole conversation. I’ve always believed that driving tests in the US are way too easy. Knowing how to parallel park and make a K-Turn is a joke in the grand scheme of driving. I think everyone should be subjected to a few different courses, maybe even over a few days.
I was really lucky that my dad and grandfather both took the time to teach me the skills i really needed for driving on the road. They would take me to this bus depot parking lot when it was raining and make me spin the car on purpose to get a grasp of what it was like to lose control of the vehicle, how to avoid it and how to recover from it. They also did this with 2 different cars in both the rain and the snow and I have to tell you, the first time you do it its scary as hell but after 4 or 5 times it becomes natural to just turn into the skid and recover from it. And when that skid happens in the real world, and it will, you won’t panic, you’ll just react.
Just think about what you learned in your driving class and what its really like on the road. Its a huge difference and unfortunately it takes time to build up the experience needed to actually be a good competent driver.
Can you imagine if we let people fly planes with the same amount of training?
Don’t forget the amount of money the gov makes off of the people that are caught. The court costs, fines, insurance premiums, license fees, etc.
Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the same gov that builds billion-dollar weapons to kill people thousand of miles away really gives a shit about saving a few people on the highway. Its about money, everything is.
Lower limits = higher likelihood of more offenders, its that simple.
