Drunk driving
kills about 10,000 Americans every year and public health and
safety groups across the U.S. are always looking for new ways to
keep people from operating motor vehicles after they've had too
much to drink. But one recent suggestion received an unusual
lack of support from several major public safety groups.
This month, the
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent
federal agency that reviews travel safety issues, urged states
to lower their legal limits for drunk driving from .08 percent
blood alcohol content (BAC) to .05 percent, the first change to
the law since the limit decreased from .10 percent to its
current level nearly 15 years ago.
In a news
conference discussing the recommendations, NTSB Chair Deborah
Hersman said the goal is to eliminate alcohol-impaired driving
by targeting drivers who drink but think they are not a danger.
"We know drivers
are significantly impaired at .05. There is no debate about
that," she said. Lowering the BAC limit "has the effect of
everyone drinking less."
The agency
coupled its recommendation for lower BAC limits with other
suggestions such as requiring ignition locks for all
drunk-driving offenders, increasing high-visibility enforcement
and developing and deploying in-vehicle detection technology.
The reduced BAC
recommendation made a splash but so far has failed to recruit
many heavyweight supporters in the fight against drunk driving.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), part
of the U.S. Department of Transportation, declined to support
the recommendation, joining other high-profile groups like the
Governors Highway Safety Administration and Mothers Against
Drunk Driving.
Critics of the
recommendation say there is no evidence that lowering the BAC
limit would have any effect on numbers of alcohol-impaired
traffic fatalities. According to NHTSA data from 2010, about 32
percent of all car crash fatalities involved a driver whose BAC
was over .08; 6 percent of fatalities involved a driver with a
legal BAC between .01 and .07. Of the drivers with an
over-the-limit BAC, more than two-thirds were well above the
limit with a BAC of .15 or higher.
Hersman
acknowledged that NTSB hadn't received resounding support for
lowering BAC limits, but she emphasized the need for federal and
state governments to do more to fight drunk driving in the U.S.
"We have not
solved this problem," she said. "This is really about changing
attitudes, changing culture, changing what's acceptable."
Georgia continues
to try to lower numbers of alcohol-related motor vehicle
crashes, which killed 277 people in the state in 2011. Katie
Fallon, public information officer for the Governor's Office of
Highway Safety (GOHS), said the NTSB recommendation is still
something Georgia officials are "looking into," but they haven't
yet made a decision about backing the proposal.
GOHS officials
are tackling another alcohol impairment problem this summer --
boating under the influence (BUI). Georgia's new legal limit for
the BAC of boaters took effect May 15, lowering the acceptable
level from .10 to .08. This summer, the Georgia Department of
Natural Resources will step up patrol and enforcement of the new
BUI law on Georgia's lakes and rivers.
Gov. Nathan Deal
said it makes sense to make the limits the same for drivers on
the road or on the water.
"Someone who's
had too much to drink has no business operating a boat. They put
not only themselves but also innocent bystanders in mortal
danger. We're sending a strong signal that boating under the
influence will not be tolerated, and we'll work to prevent
tragedies such as those we've seen in the past year," Deal said
in a GOHS news release.
In 2012, five
people died or were injured because of alcohol-impaired boaters
on Georgia's waters.
The Georgia State Patrol is also stepping up vigilance through
its annual summer traffic enforcement campaign, 100 Days of
Summer HEAT, designed to reduce fatal crashes during the months
from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a particularly dangerous time on
the road.
