NHTSA Pushes For Lower Levels For Drunk Driving
NHTSA is recommending a lower threshold for drunk driving saying the .05 standard will cut traffic deaths.
If federal accident investigators have their way, people are going to have to reassess just how many drinks they can have while out and about. On the group’s recommendation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration advised states to cut their threshold for drunk driving from .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) level to .05.
The nearly 50 percent cut in BAC levels is the standard in more than 100 countries around the world. Traffic deaths related to alcohol usage dropped by half within 10 years of implementing the .05 BAC standard in Europe. In 2011, 9,878 people died in drunk driving crashes in the U.S. – one every 53 minutes, according to NHTSA. In 2010, 10,228 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for 31 percent of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.
Drivers between the ages of 21 and 24 cause 34 percent of all alcohol-impaired deaths. They are followed by 25 to 34 year olds, who cause 30 percent of alcohol-impaired deaths, and 35 to 44 year olds, who cause 25 percent of fatal accidents, according to the NHTSA.
Car crashes remain the leading cause of death for those between the ages of 16 and 19. The Centers for Disease Control’s latest study found that since 1991 the number of teens who drink and then drive has plunged by 54 percent. About one in 10 admitted they had engaged in that risky behavior within the previous 30 days, down from nearly one in four two decades earlier.
Drunk driving costs the United States $132 billion a year. Traffic fatalities rose 5.3 percent in the U.S. last year. It was the first year that deaths rose since 2005 and it marked the highest number of people to die on U.S. roads since 2008.