Lower blood alcohol limit, WASHINGTON: States should cut their
threshold for drunken driving by nearly half-from .08 blood alcohol
level to 0.05-matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway
deaths in other countries, a US safety board recommends. That's about
one drink for a woman weighing less than 120 lbs., two for a 160 lb.
man.
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, the report said.
NTSB officials said it
wasn't their intention to prevent drivers from having a glass of wine
with dinner, but they acknowledged that under a threshold as low as .05
the safest thing for people who have only one or two drinks is not to
drive at all.
A drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, four ounces of wine, or one ounce of 80-proof alcohol.
Alcohol
concentration levels as low as .01 have been associated with
driving-related performance impairment, and levels as low as .05 have
been associated with significantly increased risk of fatal crashes, the
board said.
New approaches are needed to combat drunken driving,
which claims the lives of about a third of the more than 30,000 people
killed each year on US highways - a level of carnage that that has
remained stubbornly consistent for the past decade and a half, the board
said.
"Our goal is to get to zero deaths because each
alcohol-impaired death is preventable," NTSB chairman Deborah Hersman
said. "Alcohol-impaired deaths are not accidents, they are crimes. They
can and should be prevented. The tools exist. What is needed is the
will."
An alcohol concentration threshold of .05 is likely to
meet strong resistance from states, said Jonathan Adkins, an official
with the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state
highway safety offices.
"It was very difficult to get .08 in most
states so lowering it again won't be popular," Adkins said. "The focus
in the states is on high (blood alcohol content) offenders as well as
repeat offenders. We expect industry will also be very vocal about
keeping the limit at .08."
Even safety groups like Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and AAA declined Tuesday to endorse NTSB's
call for a .05 threshold. The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, which sets national safety policy, stopped also short of
endorsing the board's recommendation.
"NHTSA is always
interested in reviewing new approaches that could reduce the number of
drunk drivers on the road, and will work with any state that chooses to
implement a .05 BAC law to gather further information on that approach,"
the safety administration said in a statement.
The board recommended NHTSA established "incentive grants" designed to encourage states to adopt the lower threshold.
A
study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has estimated that
7,082 deaths would have been prevented in 2010 if all drivers on the
road had blood alcohol content below .08 percent.
The lower
threshold was one of nearly 20 recommendations made by the board,
including that states adopt measures to ensure more widespread use of
use of alcohol ignition interlock devices. Those require a driver to
breathe into a tube, much like the breathalyzers police ask suspected
drunken drivers to use.
The board has previously recommended
states require all convicted drunken drivers install the interlock
devices in their vehicles as a condition to resume driving. Currently,
17 states and two California counties require all convicted drivers use
the devices.
However, only about a quarter of drivers ordered to
use the devices actually end up doing so, the board said. Drivers use a
variety of ways to evade using the devices, including claiming they
won't drive at all or don't own a vehicle and therefore don't need the
devices, the board said.
The board recommended the safety
administration develop a program to encourage states to ensure all
convicted drivers actually use the devices. The board also recommended
that all suspected drunken drivers whose licenses are confiscated by
police be required to install interlocks as a condition of getting their
licenses reinstated even though they haven't yet been convicted of a
crime.
Courts usually require drivers to pay for the devices,
which cost about $50 to $100 to buy plus a $50 a month fee to operate,
staff said.
The board has previously called on the safety
administration and the auto industry to step up their research into
technology for use in all vehicles that can detect whether a driver has
elevated blood alcohol without the driver breathing into a tube or
taking any other action. Drivers with elevated levels would be unable to
start their cars.
But the technology is still years away.
Studies
show more than 4 million people a year in the U.S. drive while
intoxicated, but about half of the intoxicated drivers stopped by police
escape detection, the NTSB report said. The board also recommended
expanded use of passive alcohol devices by police. The devices are often
contained in real flash lights or shaped to look like a cellphone that
officers wear on their shirt pockets or belts. If an officer points the
flashlight at a driver or the cellphone-like device comes in close
proximity to an intoxicated driver, the devices will alert police who
may not have any other reason to suspect drunken driving.
The use of the devices currently is very limited, the report said.
Dramatic
progress was made in the 1980s through the mid-1990s after the minimum
drinking age was raised to 21 and the legally-allowable maximum level of
drivers' blood alcohol content was lowered to .08, the report said.
Today, drunken driving claims nearly 10,000 lives a year, down from
21,000 in 1982. At that time, alcohol-related fatalities accounted for
48 percent of highway deaths.
The board made its recommendations
on the 25th anniversary of one of the nation's deadliest drunken driving
accidents in Carrollton, Ky. A drunk driver drove his pickup on the
wrong side of a highway, collided with a bus and killed 27 people, 24 of
them children. The children were part of a church youth group on their
way home after spending the day at an amusement park.
Sourec : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/US-mulls-lower-blood-alcohol-limit-for-drivers/articleshow/20058438.cms?