Legal BAC Limit Of 0.05 Proposed By U.S. Safety Board
If this were to come to pass and was retroactively applied to the ASU student from this story that registered a 0.47, and was dropped off at the hospital by his boys with a sticky note attached to him, he would have been clocked at 9.4 times the legal BAC limit. The legal threshold is currently 0.08, so either way you slice it, that guy was hammered drunk, but thankfully he didn’t end up behind the wheel of a car.
The dilemma is, of course, which alcohol content level should be the legal determining point of intoxication.
From CNN:
The National Transportation Safety Board recommended that all 50 states lower the threshold to 0.05. The idea is part of a safety board initiative to eliminate drunk driving, which accounts for about a third of all road deaths.
[…]
Hersman said progress has been made over the years to reduce drunk driving, including government policies, tougher law enforcement and stepped up advocacy. But she said too many people are still dying on America’s roads in alcohol-related crashes.
Lowering the rate to 0.05 would save about 500 to 800 lives every year, the safety board said.
I’m not too concerned with how intoxication is defined, but if the number of drunk driving accidents can be minimized by stricter laws, I’m all for a lowered BAC threshold.
[via CNN]
Once youre in greek life your body has to constantly maintain a BAC of .06! I mean christ if it got any lower the resulted hang over from the accumulation of all the drinking could kill you. Trust me i was Pre-med for a semester.
13 years ago at 1:45 pmA premed who quotes Archer, that is.
13 years ago at 2:03 pmI don’t really see how lowering the BAC will help. If somebody is stupid enough to drive drunk with a legal BAC of .08 than they will still be stupid if we lower that number to .05. You can’t fix stupid.
13 years ago at 1:47 pmAgreed, you let natural selection take care if it.
13 years ago at 2:46 pm^ Except in most alcohol related accidents the innocent don’t walk away.
13 years ago at 3:04 pmThis is all about money. More people die from distracted(texting, etc) driving, but this is a huge revenue generator for the government. A DUI is incredibly costly as far as fees. In reality, someone at a .06 is really not a danger to anyone, but if they can arrest someone for it, it’s another 1,000+ dollars for the government.
13 years ago at 1:49 pmPrecisely, purely a money grab by big brother.
13 years ago at 2:56 pmHey, what the f***
13 years ago at 4:31 pm^
13 years ago at 10:52 pmThis law won’t save anyone. The current 0.08 is already too low and lowering it any more is crazy. Any BAC below 0.2 is basically the same level of distraction as adjusting your radio or AC while driving, and we don’t put people in jail for that.
13 years ago at 2:16 pmIf they do they should make anywhere selling alcohol to have a breathalyzer available for customer use. No need to keep people guessing if they wonder whether or not it’s safe to drive home. A BAC of .05 is equivalent to 2 light beers in 1 hour.
13 years ago at 2:17 pmOnly an idiot blows, this really wouldn’t apply to me
13 years ago at 5:37 pm“Lowering the rate to 0.05 would save about 500 to 800 lives every year, the safety board said”
Wow. Zero logic there.
13 years ago at 6:20 pm500 to 800 lives? Where are they getting these very unspecific specific numbers? Have there been any statistically significant results? If there have been, can we see the analysis? As far as I’m concerned, this is a power move. Dorn, you are a clown.
13 years ago at 6:24 pmI think the BAC should be .15
13 years ago at 8:16 pmThis is why you always keep a bottle in the car with you. . Cop pulls you over. Then step out and take a big pull. Bam, drunk in public as opposed to Dui. Tell them good luck proving you were drunk while driving.
13 years ago at 9:27 amI can’t decide if this is genius, or plain fucking stupid.
13 years ago at 4:10 pmIf you blow a .08, good luck proving that you got to that level from one big gulp of liquor.
13 years ago at 7:36 pm