Drunk driving: How much is too much?

Should it be a crime to have one more for the road? asked Ashley Halsey III in The Washington Post. The National Transportation Safety Board has suggested lowering the legal threshold for drunk driving from its current blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent to 0.05. A 160-pound man could reach 0.05 with a single martini or two beers, if consumed quickly, while a 120-pound woman could get there with just one beer or glass of wine. The federal agency says efforts to prevent drunken-driving deaths have stalled at about 10,000 a year, and reducing the legal level to 0.05—the limit in most countries—would “significantly reduce crashes and deaths.” You might think you’re fine to drive after two or three beers, said the New York Daily News, but research shows that even at 0.05, drivers are 38 percent more likely to get involved in a crash. One study says the lower limit could save more than 500 lives a year. “We’ll drink to that—with a designated driver.”

“Let’s not stigmatize innocent drivers,” said Gary Biller in NYTimes.com. Imposing a 0.05 limit would put responsible citizens who have a drink or two in the same criminal class as drivers who get staggering drunk and then climb behind the wheel. Statistics show that casual drinkers aren’t the problem—more than 92.5 percent of alcohol-related driving fatalities involve drivers with levels of 0.10 or higher. And consider “the economic effect on restaurants and bars, especially in rural areas,” said the Scottsbluff, Neb., Star-Herald. If cops start busting otherwise law-abiding Americans “over a barely measurable amount of alcohol,” people may just stay home.

It actually “takes some work to get to 0.05 percent,” said Barron H. Lerner in NYTimes.com. In research for a book on drunken driving, I found it took me three drinks in one hour to reach 0.05 percent, and I was clearly “buzzed.” Even at 0.05, most drivers will find it harder to brake, steer, judge distances, and change lanes than sober people will. “Do you want these people coming at you on the road?” And if you are a smaller woman who gets to 0.05 after a single drink, then I say “tough luck.” Your right to socially drink and then drive is “much less compelling” than the life you might take because your foot is a half-second slow on the brake pedal.

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