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[Tom Sawyer]

Of course the headline tells us of the horrors we will be saved from... not the horrors that people will be subject to by the legal process... not to mention the effect on the restaurant/tavern businesses.

Tougher drunk-driving threshold proposed to reduce traffic deaths

A restaurant trade association, the American Beverage Institute, attacked the main recommendation, saying the average woman reaches 0.05 percent BAC after consuming one drink. The group said it based that conclusion on a chart it said was used by auto safety regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
But NHTSA told CNN on Tuesday it no longer uses that chart "as there are many variables" that contribute to an individual's level of intoxication. A new NHTSA chart shows a person with a 0.05 BAC level experiences "reduced coordination, reduced ability to track moving objects, difficulty steering, (and) reduced response to emergency driving situations."

[MaineShark]

I knew a woman who was about 5'1", maybe 95 pounds if she was soaking wet, and who would sit there and drink Bacardi 151 like anyone else might drink wine.

Her boyfriend was a 6'5" linebacker, and she'd drink him under the table.

So all of their "charts" are pretty much pointless.

[doobie]

reduce traffic deaths or put more people in jail and steal more money from them?

[KBCraig]

I can't find the source where I recall reading it, but I believe the average drunk driver who causes an accident has 0.17 BAC; how does reducing the legal limit stop those who are already way beyond it?

It's like, oh, I don't know, limiting firearm magazine capacity to 7 because a murderer fired a couple hundred rounds.

That figure has remained constant, from the days when the legal limit in many states was 0.15, when they all changed to 0.10, and and now that the feds forced them to lower it to 0.08 BAC.

(Some stranger on Facebook recalled the same 0.17 BAC figure, but he couldn't find it either. I think Balko wrote an article about it when he was with CATO.)

[KBCraig]

There are no citations of evidence, but here's an older Lew Rockwell column making the same claim.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/drunkdriving.html

Now the feds declare that a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent and above is criminal and must be severely punished. The National Restaurant Association is exactly right that this is absurdly low. The overwhelming majority of accidents related to drunk driving involve repeat offenders with blood-alcohol levels twice that high. If a standard of 0.1 doesn't deter them, then a lower one won't either.

[Tom Sawyer]

Some people are dangerous stone cold sober... others maintain even after tipping back quite a few. To be fair some sort of indicator of the level of impairment is necessary, not some arbitrary blood level. Of course it's really about revenue and incremental alcohol prohibition.