NTSB Pushes .05 Drunk Driving Limit

It was 25 years ago that a fiery crash in Carrollton killed 25 people and injured 34 others when a drunk driver hit a church bus returning from a trip to an amusement park.

The ripples from that tragedy continue to spread.

On the 25^th anniversary of that deadly wreck, the National Transportation Safety Board issued a recommendation that the blood alcohol limit for drunk driving in Kentucky and nationwide be lowered from .08 to .05 percent.

The timing was no coincidence.

Thirty years ago, the legal blood alcohol limit was .10 percent. In 1982, the NTSB recommended lowering the legal limit to .08 percent. Utah was the first state to adopt the lower limit, and by 2004 all other states had followed suit.

The result was striking:

• In 1982, with the higher .10 percent level still in effect, there were 21,113 alcohol-related fatalities nationwide. That number represented half of all highway deaths.
• At the present .08 percent level, there are about 10,000 alcohol-related fatalities a year, which represents one-third of all highway deaths.

This is from USA Today:

The advocacy group Mothers Against Drunk Driving welcomed the board’s recommendation, but rather than push for a lower blood-alcohol content level, the group is fighting to eliminate drunken-driving entirely. MADD is pushing for better technology to prevent convicted drunken drivers from operating a vehicle after drinking and to make law enforcement more visible.

“As a mother whose child was killed by a drunk driver, the most important thing to me is preventing as many families as possible from suffering similar tragedies,” said MADD National President Jan Withers.

The board’s recommendation follows an effort in the European Union that set a goal of cutting alcohol-related fatalities in half by 2010 and succeeded. Europe is now trying to cut the crashes in half again over the next decade.

More than 100 countries already have drunk driving levels at 0.05 percent. The U.S. is one of the few developed nations with a higher level, according to the NTSB.

There were 171 DUI fatalities in Kentucky in 2010, according to statistics. This represented 24 percent of all traffic deaths in the state that year.

It is estimated that fatal drunk driving crashes cost the state $803 million each year.

People who are involved in an alcohol-related crash can contact a Kentucky auto accident attorney for legal help.

Sources:

• USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/14/national-transportation-safety-board-drunken-driving/2158107/
• MADD http://www.madd.org/drunk-driving/state-stats/Kentucky.html