The Long Expected Next Phase In DUI Law Is HERE

So now you're predicting a revolution, ostensibly led by binge-drinkers, who are infuriated by any attempts to reduce the amount they can drink before they can legally drive?

You think there is a "risk of this collective blowing up" if people have to have one drink per hour less, before they get in their cars and drive, if the legal limit is lowered from .08 to .05? Good grief, such hysteria--"the collective" will actually blow up.

You get more absurd all the time, Chicken Little.

Any gain in saved lives, or fewer damaged bodies, or less property damage, or lower insurance premiums is not "small"--particularly given the number of vehicles and drivers on the roads. Safety on the roads doesn't have to be sacrificed in order to appease the binge drinkers, who refuse to arrange alternate transportation, and who want to be able to selfishly, and irresponsibly, continue to drive while impaired.

And the risks of alcohol-related auto accidents, injuries, and deaths are greater with a BAC level of .08 than they are with a BAC level of .05.

If you don't know that, Hawkeye, it puts you squarely in the dumb category.

the risks at .08 are reasonable, no further action is justified, and going all the way down to ,05 would cause us more problems that it solves. my position has been stated several times and stated well, stop pretending like you are too stupid to understand my position.

ALL other nations that have adopted the .05 level have seen drops in traffic fatalities (Apparently it took over a year for Germany and Ireland to see the drops because enforcement take longer to be engrained into diving habits)
I can understand your position being against lowering the BAL just as I understand the Pa liquor store union being AGAINST th privatization of liquor sales. Its all self preservation, admit it.

I have already signed on to the arguement that lowering the legal BAC would make the roads safer...my position is that alcohol road problems at .08 are reasonable and that the law change to .05 on the whole would be bad for Americans and bad for America. those other countries may or may not be happy with their loss of freedom, but we are not them so I dont care much either way.

PUH LEEZE-dont make it a "freedoms" issue, youre just afraid of getting busted when somone fets into an accident cause they would be DUI at .05.

Im concerned about the innocent people who die because of your pigheaded belief.
Dont you care about loss of innocent lives?
We hd a fatality near Harrisburg last week where some drunken bunch of teens drove in the wrong lane and head on collided with a carfull of little kids.
The kids who died were in the sober car. Tell me that even one life isnt worth the incovenience of going through the drill of getting a designated driver, or cutting off clients.

For you its a buisness decision, so dont try to con me with your spiehl of whats "Bad for AMerica", youre daft .

Youve already stipulated that 0.05 HAS scientific evidence that impairment has begun. Yet you deny that impairment leads to possible fatal accidents.

Oh I understand your position, just fine. You like to drink, you like to drink a lot. For you, drinking a lot is a necessary social lubricant and personal anesthetic. And you think it's that way for everyone.

And you don't want to be bothered arranging for alternate transportation when you drink.

So you just don't care about the risks you, and all other drivers, pose to others when you drive with a BAC level of .08, or care about how those risks would be lessened if the legal BAC limit was .05.

And you have no interest in seeing the risks of alcohol-related accidents, injuries, and deaths, reduced, if that means it would affect your alcohol intake, and restrict it, even slightly, if you wanted to drive legally.

Your "position" is nothing more than a promotion of your own selfishness, sense of entitlement, and ego-centricity.

You want to drink, go right ahead. You want to drink a lot, go right ahead. But you have no right to drink and drive. You have no right to put others at unnecessary risk because you are unable, or unwilling, to modulate your drinking before you drive. Find alternate means of transportation if you want to binge drink. And, if that's an "inconvenience" for you, that's just too bad. Driving carries with it responsibilities, and "inconvenience", or laziness, or selfishness, or drunkenness, does not erase those responsibilities--you have no right to knowingly put other people at risk so you can legally drive in an impaired state.

Grow up, Hawkeye.

my reading of current evidence is that any BAC above .03 raises the dangers on the road. I also belive that we have other very important considerations other than road safety to factor into where to draw the line, to include the health of the foodservice and bar economy, and that at the end of the day the .08 standard is just barely tolorable and we should go no lower.

the children are the ones who believe their fantasy that laws and the police state can and will make them safe.

How about the health of the general population--the physical/medical health of the general population? Do you think physical health is, in any way, improved by putting excessive amounts of alcohol, a toxin, in the human body?

Can you see excessive/binge drinking as a public health problem? Why is the "health" of the bar economy more important than the physical health of the population?

I'm sure you're also more concerned with the financial loss to tobacco manufacturers, from the reduction in cigarette smoking, than you are with the increased health risks of smoking or exposure to second-hand smoke.

Your bar profits are not more important than my safety on the road.

Five years from now, drunks will be able to buy a self-driving car to get them to and from their watering holes, and we'll all be the safer for it.

But, until then, they should use a car, taxi, bus, or train, driven by someone else, someone who is sober.

When I lived in Japan there was a system where you could hire two guys with a car - one would drive you home in your own car and the other would follow in their car to pick the first guy up when you got there. That was 20 years ago I don't know if they still do it. As someone mentioned Japan now allows zero blood alcohol - it makes it easier because you don't need to worry if you've had one too many or not. If you are caught driving with alcohol in your system everyone else in the car will be fined as well for allowing you to drive - which seems a little harsh.

They should also have a non eating driver when they pull out of Burger King with a double Whopper with cheese while trying to not spill the supersized soft drink.

Hawkeye,
I think you are wrong on this issue, and I will explain why.
I am a firefighter and an EMT for the local volunteer fire dept. Because this is a fairly rural county (16,000 residents), there is a lot of drinking and driving on the weekends, and we usually get called out at least once a weekend to clean up the mess after a wreck.

Many of those wrecks are caused by or have as a contributing factor, alcohol.
I am tired of scraping people off pavement, or pulling them out of a wrecked car, because they wanted to drink.
After you have worked as many accidents as I have, you really do see the effects alcohol has on a persons judgement and motor skills.
If it was up to me, ANY accident that has a fatality, if drunk or impaired driving was involved, the drunk driver would face the death penalty.
You are free to get as drunk as you want, whenever you want.
But once you get behind the wheel, you are putting your life, my life, and every other drivers lives at risk, and you don't have the right to do that.

If you really want to see the effects of drunk driving, ride with your local fire dept or EMS agency to a few car wrecks and see what the real toll is.

OK, I will get off my soapbox now.

What Mysteryman said.

You keep talking about "the collective", hawkeye. Well, the collective is speaking, and the collective thinks you're being an idiot.

the collective was very resistant to going down to .08, and so far as I can tell almost none of the gang who fought for .08 is willing to pickup arms for battle to .05....it looks to me like I am on the side of the majority.

i have no reason at the moment to doubt the data compiled by scientists on this matter, and my read of this data is that any more legal restrictions on drinking and driving are unjustified.

however your lack of agreement with my opinion is noted.....

we will get there if we dont put a stop to the expanding police state.

any activity that takes away concentration or focus from driving , in many states is punisheable.
Still You insist on allowing being"a little bit drunk" while driving.