Many defense lawyers and drivers have complained that the blood-alcohol level used by states is too low and allows charges for relatively low amounts of alcohol consumption. Nevertheless, it appears that the National Transportation Safety Board will recommended that all states drop the blood-alcohol level at which motorists can be charged with driving drunk to .05, down from the current rate of .08. That will mean that an average woman will cross the threshold with only a single drink. For men, it will be a two drink maximum.
What is striking is the statement of NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman, who explained that “Our goal is to get to zero deaths because each alcohol-impaired death is preventable.” That would seem to favor a .00 BAL. While all agencies work to avoid all injuries and deaths, few consider it a functional goal since there are few attainable absolutes in regulations. All regulation tends to be a trade off between rivaling goals or practices. Drinking is legal and most people believe that they can drive safely with a single drink. There is no question that the alcohol diminishes driving ability even with a single drink but the new level could result in a massive expansion of drivers under court supervision or suspension.
In defense of NTSB, they claim that more than 100 countries have adopted the .05 alcohol content standard or lower. Yet, this is a change that will receive little debate outside of the NTSB. An issue of this importance used to be the subject of considerable debate in Congress (or more importantly, in state legislatures) but with the rise of the “Fourth Branch” of federal agencies, such decisions are increasingly decided by federal bureaucracies that are fairly insulated from the public. They are then imposed on the states through federal conditional spending.
Many states are likely to balk at the decision given the already vocal opposition over the current standard. However, the federal government is expected to threaten states with the loss of federal funding for highways if they do not do exactly what they are told. No state (particularly in this economy) can afford to forgo federal funds for roads. While the Supreme Court suggested in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius that the federal government could go too far in coercing states (in that case by threatening Medicaid), it has long allowed the use of federal conditions for highway funding. This encourages Congress to take in more taxes than it needs to return the money to the state with conditions or federal mandates.
States may also be ordered to implement alcohol ignition interlock devices. The cost of these devices is imposed on the drivers in the form of a $50 to $100 purchase price plus a $50 a month fee to operate.
With the increasing use of sobriety roadblocks where drivers are asked if they had anything to drink (and most answer truthfully), the result could be a much higher “yield” in arrests.
What do you think about the new regulation on BAL?
Source: USA Today
This proposed bureaucratic rule of even look at a beer & you go to prison seems like the logical next step in fulfilling the recent States contracts with the private prison industrial complex in which the State guarantees the Private for Profit Prison a 99% occupancy rate.
Would have any of you invested/opened a business in Nazi in 1938?
Knowing what we know now why would anyone do so in the USA today?
The standard ought to be based on impairment, not some random number pulled out of thin air. I doubt seriously that someone with a BAC of .05 percent could be said to be too impaired to drive. A sleepy driver or a texting driver or someone engrossed in a cell phone conversation (or maybe even just trying to handle their hot coffee or their in-car fast food lunch) is almost surely a greater threat than someone with a ,05 BAC. And what of drivers on prescription meds?
No. Just no.
Frankly, My daughter pointed out to me the ‘W’ or “whiskey license plates’ in Mn. As you probably know, people w/ multiple DUI’s are required to have these whiskey plates auto tags that start w/ “W”, that also are more plain than regular Mn. plates.
OS, I was a juror on a diabetic DUI case. I’ve been summoned to jury duty 4 times, but that is the only time I was selected. The defendant blew a .12. At the time, .10 was the limit. We didn’t by it and convicted him. OS, I don’t doubt all you said. However, I am a pragmatist. We can’t draw everyones blood. However, there is a big problem coming down the road. Cannabis use also impairs. If someone can come up w/ a cannabis type breathalyzer they will make some serious dough. Cannabis is going to be legal in most states soon.
I have a breathalyzer @ home. Bought it for my son when he was younger. I have used it on myself. You are pretty popped @ .08. I think .06 would be a reasonable level.
I have to disagree that two drinks will impair motor functioning in flying an airplane. I recall reading an article in FLYING in which they found that having some alcohol IMPROVED flying an ILS approach since it relaxed the pilot enough so that their performance improved. Saying this is NOT an endorsement of drinking and flying, but simply an example of some beneficial side effect of alcohol use. They also found obviously that having more alcohol decreased performance.
I would rather go back to dirt roads. This is too much overreach by the Transportation Safety Board.
There is also a major problem with the so-called field sobriety test. This series of exercises do NOT measure whether a person has had anything at all to drink. The tasks that make up the field sobriety test are actually a simple neurological examination done by emergency room doctors, neurologists and neuropsychologists in order to determine possible organic injury, such as a concussion.
I am aware of one case in which an attorney ran off the road and hit a tree after leaving the office late at night. The officer found him dazed and confused. Officer insisted on doing a field sobriety test, which the attorney failed miserably. Instead of calling an ambulance to take him to the nearest emergency room, he arrested him. When he got out on bond the next morning, he called me. I saw him right away and gave him several brief neurological screening tests, it was clear he had a concussion consistent with the bruises on his head. I sent him to the nearest emergency room to get a head scan and a referral to a neurologist or neurosurgeon if needed. If he had been having a brain bleed, he could have died.
Bingo OS….
And to say the insurance lobby is not behind this would be a lie…. Oh… And the state… More info is learned… Associations…. Friends…. Bad, bad ideal….
he belongs to the ABS.
he is a card carrying Bubba.
Frankly:
this is VA and he is a good ole boy.
Philip – totally agree. My kid got nicked & was right at .08, he thought he was OK. I have no idea what .05, .08 or .1 feels like. It would be educational to find out. It would also be educational to see what impact those various levels have on driving/reaction times ect.
I have no mercy for drunk driving but we have to have rational standards. BTW in Europe it is called “Drink Driving” because they are that tough, you just don’t drink and drive. “Drunk” is not in the equation.
Want a concrete measure to reduce automobile crashes, injuries, fatalities? Get the cop out of his/her speed trap and into a busy intersection. Accidents, for the most part, are in the intersections. Yet how many drivers do you see running red lights while Johnny Law is down the road writing a ticket for some poor guy who zoomed along at 12 over? Get the cops into the intersections. And .05 is absolutely ridiculous.
Bron – here in MN that would cost him his license to drive.
There is a current court challenge on the grounds that this is coercive. but thats the law today.
If the new proposed standard has adequate scientific research showing impairment at the new level, then fine, adopt it. What’s needed are easy to use and readily available devices so drivers can determine their alcohol level before driving. Unintentionally misjudging a BAL of .05 in the belief that it is a legal .04 or lower could carry penalties that will be quite harsh. Responsible, law abiding people could easily make such a mistake.
a lawyer I know says he rolls down his window a crack, locks the doors and tells the officer, as politely as possible, I dont do tests. Rolls the window back up and just sits there.
There are what… 40,000 deaths per year on our highways? Many of which can be attributed to one or more alcohol-impaired drivers? I think that sounds like a fine standard. “One for the road” has to stop. We’re not driving horse carts anymore.
Just left China. Our host driver did not have a beer at lunch because he was driving. That’s the norm. Don’t drink and drive. My daughter is an emigre to Denmark. No drinking by drivers is the norm. One drink is a reasonable accommodation given our culture.
While drinking and driving is not acceptable behavior, it seems that these alcohol related “preventable” deaths appear to deserve more stringent rules than those driving under the influence of system response slowing prescription drugs, such as antidepressants, or those who have a system slowing illness, a screaming child distraction, an attention seeking lap dog, or the obese person unable to concentrate or quickly react while chowing a Whooper. Maybe a requirement should be four cameras in every car so anyone not at 100% system efficiency for 100% of the time can be hauled away and branded a burden on society after any accident.
“With the increasing use of sobriety roadblocks where drivers are asked if they had anything to drink (and most answer truthfully), the result could be a much higher “yield” in arrests.”
If anyone answers the question truthfully then they are foolish indeed. In fact, if one answers any questions posed by an armed thug in the employment of the state, they are the biggest fools on the planet. Better to stand silent and refuse any and all questions.
This is not a particularly good idea. There are some things that not only does the public not know, but officers and lawmakers don’t know as well.
What a lot of people don’t know, is that a breathalyzer does not necessarily measure alcohol. It measures “other.” I have seen a couple of cases where a person blew more than .1 with no alcohol in their system at all. They had eaten bad shrimp and had thrown up. Acid breath.
Some over the counter medications, breath mints, mouthwash, Altoids or Halls cough lozenges can jack up the reading as well.
Another problem; if one is running a fever, or has been soaking in a sauna or hot tub, core temperature will be elevated. If the body core temperature is higher than 98.6 degrees F, the breathalyzer reading will be artificially elevated up to 8% for each degree above the baseline of 98.6.
If one has worked with industrial solvents such as paint thinner, and there are residual chemicals in the lungs, breathalyzer readings will be elevated artificially.
Diabetics convert acetone into isopropyl alcohol at a higher rate than non-diabetics. That shows on the breath.
Tobacco use can skew the test. Persons who smoke or use smokeless tobacco will have as much as 30% higher acetaldehyde levels than individuals who don’t smoke or chew tobacco.
The only accurate test is a blood test done in a lab.
I envision this as the “Full Employment Act” for attorneys specializing in DUI defense.