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Yesterday, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that a blood-alcohol level of .05 should be the new threshold for DUIs, instead of the .08 level in current state laws.
It’s just a recommendation, but you’ll note that thanks to grant money, all 50 since have implemented limits of .08 for drunk-driving, which was the previous NTSB recommendation.
See also:
–Feds Want Blood-Alcohol Level for DUIs to Drop From .08 to .05
“The NTSB concludes that BAC levels higher than 0.05 are viewed by respected traffic safety and public health organizations around the world as posing unacceptable risk for driving, and more than 100 countries have already established per se BAC limits at or below 0.05,” the report says.
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However, the board also notes that “levels as low as 0.01 have been associated with driving-related performance impairment,” and “levels as low as 0.05 have been associated with significantly increased risk of fatal crashes.”
Those statements don’t make .05 sound like a huge improvement over .08, even though the board says the studies show there are fewer fatal crashes with the lower level on the books in other countries.
Given Arizona’s harsh, harsh penalties for DUI, would you support Arizona moving to a new DUI threshold of .05?
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Follow Matthew Hendley on Twitter at @MatthewHendley.
