There aren’t negative values to use for enforcement?
.05 is what it is in Sweden
I tell people all the time:
Build a bar in your house.
It’s cheaper than a DUI.
Smoking pot and meth are ok though
Focus on impairment = using a subjective standard not an objective one.
It’s been the goal all along and not just in Utah. BAC levels were untethered from medical science long ago...the rest is merely state greed and control freakery.
Anyone who believes DUI as currently constituted is about safety is a fool. Anyone who repeats it is a liar.
It’s lowering our sociality where public transportation is non-existent. Fewer and fewer get togethers with drinking (which most people like to do).
I want breathalyzer checks of all congresscritters and senators entering all sessions. They’re doing our work, better not be RUI (representing under the influence)!
I remember when 0.10 was the limit, and you could buy 3.2% beer at 18 years of age.
The 0.10 limit has a much better correlation with the increased likelihood to be involved in an accident than lower limits do. But cities like their income any way they can take it.
Get caught DUI in MA, lose your guns!
Idaho sign in 1984:
Eat drink and be merry because tomorrow you’ll be in Utah
Asking an impaired person to estimate whether they are too impaired to operate a two ton high speed vehicle sharing a roadway shared with people I love is not a viable proposition.
The correct alcohol level to drive is zero. Similar to carrying a weapon, if I’m packing, no alcohol at all, same with driving.
I know people who can drive far more safely at 0.1 than any number of doddering 70 year old Mormons at 0.0.
I’m more afraid of encountering a tired driver than a drunk driver. Driving tired is more likely than driving drunk, as there is no objective measure to let you know you are likely too tired to drive.
That aside, so in the 10,000 or so years of alcohol use by humans, only now do we understand how it affects motor skills and attentiveness. When BAC levels were at 0.1 and DUI began to get federal scrutiny in the 1980’s, the first move was to increase the state-set drinking ages or lose federal highway funds. That set up the ridiculous scenario where a 20-year old service member couldn’t legally have a drink at their own wedding (as happened to a good friend of mine).
Once people began to educate themselves about what it took to avoid a 0.1 level (about 3 drinks in an hour for a 190 lb man), DUI arrests began to drop. So in the early 2000’s the rate was magically lowered to .08 (2 drinks for a man) and now, in keeping with an ~15 year cycle, it’s going to 0.05, where now it’s down to one drink.
As you can see from this link to NHTSA stats, there is no statistical difference in DUI fatality prevalence when BAC gets below .13. That suggests to me that the 0.1 level used back in the 1980’s was based on data:
Subsequent reductions are a money grab by cash-starved municipalities, pure and simple, backed by a Prohibitionist movement that has never really faded out in the US.