Drunk Driving: An Argument for Lowering Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has an interesting study on alcohol-related crash rates involving young drivers
As a criminal defense lawyer with an active DUI practice, I took particular note of the arguments in favor of:
* Lowering the minimum BAC to .05 from .08
* Prompt and longer suspensions of drivers’ licenses, a la the Scandinavian model
* Substantially increasing the number of alcohol check-points

If these arguments are as persuasive to state legislators as they were to me (and that may be the case), the DUI bar has nothing to worry with respect to getting enough business.

The evidence supports two conclusions: 1) the lower the legal BAC, the fewer deaths and injuries; 2) the more onerous the consequences, the fewer deaths and injuries.

Other items I found interesting:
* It is estimated that less than 1% of alcohol-impaired drivers are caught
* Roughly one in four traffic deaths is alcohol-related
* The driver is drunk in more than half of accidents involving deaths of child passengers age 14 or under (as opposed to the other driver)
* Men are twice as likely as women to have a BAC of .08% and higher when killed in an alcohol-related accident
* Young men between 18 and 20 do the most drunk driving per capita of any age group

But here is the big one, at least from my criminal law practice point of view:

- Drivers with BACs over .08% were NINE TIMES more likely to have a DUI on their record than the other non-drinking driver.

As I tell my first-time DUI clients, emphatically and dramatically, if they want to plea: “You have nothing to worry about with this one other than what is going to happen to you the next time. You have to think about what changes you are going to make so you will not get another DUI.”