Feds Want To Lower Legal Blood Alcohol Limit for Drivers

Reason ^ | May 14, 2013 | Reason.com

[Altariel]

Federal accident investigators recommended Tuesday that states cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half, matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries.

The National Transportation Safety Board said states should shrink the standard from the current .08 blood alcohol content to .05 as part of a series of recommendations aimed at reducing alcohol-related highway deaths.

More than 100 countries have adopted the .05 alcohol content standard or lower, according to a report by the board's staff. In Europe, the share of traffic deaths attributable to drunken driving was reduced by more than half within 10 years after the standard was dropped.

[rktman]

Why not just re-instate the 18th amendment. They can abolish the 2nd amendment at the same time. Besides which booze ain’t allowed under sharia anyway. Might as well get started.

[rktman]

When is D.A.M.M. going to weigh in on this? Drunks Against Mad Mothers.

[BitWielder1]

Why not lower the Legal Blood Alcohol Limit for politicians?

[usual suspect]

You can’t control honest men and women, so pass enough laws to make everyone a felon. Dui=Cottage industry, Judges, lawyers, fines, probation officers, community service managers... democrats dream.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Most of the drunks involved in fatal accidents are way over the limit, but Liberals feel compelled to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

They just can't help themselves.

[TheRhinelander]

0.05 is basically two drinks in an hour. Body mass makes it vary.

[Altariel]

Not to mention SWAT teams, police chiefs, deputies and sheriffs who will be eager to use this to collect revenue.

[Salvey]

Anyone familiar with the science of blood alcohol levels will realize that this is tantamount to Prohibition.

[Altariel]

ping

A prohibitionist state is a safe state.

[getitright]

If they use the lower level to ring up anyone who gets in a collision or if someone is driving recklessly, that’s one thing. But you know darn well the bastiges will abuse it.

Any thing at all that you get stopped for they can bust you for DUI if you have walked passed a beer at any point in the previous week.

[PfromHoGro]

Hey NTSB! Would it be easier for you if we all just stayed home?

[from occupied ga]

I've got a great idea. Let's lower it to zero. That way anyone can be arrested for DUI at any time thus making several groups happy:

• The insurance companies who will then raise the rates
• the local governments who collect the plunder from the fines
• The police giving them ever grater powers to harass and intimidate
• Morons Against Driving This will make the modern carrie nations swell with self rightous pride as to how they stuck it someone/anyone. Nothing excites a malicious busybody so much as passing another malum prohibitum law.
• The body shops, because this will do nothing to decrease drunk driving accidents
• Lawyers who represent people roped in by this will get richer
• The list really gets pretty long.

[Altariel]

Expect to see a lot more of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4Q5FlR6yyA

Instead of writing him down for .016; he claimed he had a BAC of .16

After all, that “little extra zero doesn’t mean ****.” And the “Peasant” should , “You know what…**** it…argue it in court.”

[Blood of Tyrants]

I would rather that they raise the minimum IQ for pols.

[TurboZamboni]

.08 seems kinda high expectations for Congresscritters.

[spawn44]

.05 would eliminate all socialist democrats from driving. They were born with .05.

[meyer]

This is all about opening yet another avenue to bring cash to state and local governments. Once they ventured below 0.10 BAC, they started venturing into territory where the cost of the punishment far exceeded the risk presented by the “crime”.

This is just backdoor prohibition. The federal government should have NO SAY over this issue in the first place.

[JCBreckenridge]

Ummm, no. Just no. Drink all you like just don’t drive after drinking. Not hard...

[JCBreckenridge]

Sigh. This is a terrible argument. Drink all you like, just don’t drive after drinking.