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The Science Behind the Case for .08
Setting the BAC limit at .08 is a reasonable response to the problem of impaired driving. The effect of California’s .08 law was analyzed by NHTSA. The agency found that 81% of the driving population knew that the BAC limit was stricter (from a successful public education effort). The state experienced a 12% reduction in alcohol-related fatalities, although some of this can be credited to the new administrative license revocation law, which was enacted during the year that the BAC standard was lowered. The state also experienced an increase in DUI arrests.
A multi-state analysis of the effect of lowering BAC levels to .08 was conducted by Boston University’s School of Public Health. The results of that study were reported in the September 1996 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, a peer-reviewed journal.
The Boston University study compared the first five states to lower their BAC limit to .08 (California, Maine, Oregon, Utah, and Vermont) with five nearby states that retained the .10 limit. The results of this study suggest .08 laws, particularly in combination with administrative license revocation, reduce the proportion of fatal crashes involving drivers and fatally injured drivers at blood alcohol levels of .08 and higher by 16% and those at BAC of .15 and greater by 18%.
The immediate significance of these findings is that, not only did the .08 BAC laws, particularly in combination with administrative license revocation, reduce the overall incidence of alcohol fatalities, but they also reduced fatalities at the higher BAC levels. The effect on the number of extremely impaired drivers was even greater than the overall effect.
The study concluded that if all states lowered their BAC limits to .08, alcohol-related highway deaths would decrease by 500-600 per year which would result in an economic cost savings of about $1.5 billion. Reducing deaths by 500 each year to the year 2005 would result in a decrease in alcohol-related fatalities to about 13,200, just by passing .08 laws.
In a NHTSA analysis of these five states, six different measures of driver alcohol involvement in fatal crashes were examined for changes between the time period before the .08 law was passed compared to the time period after passage of the law for each state. A total of thirty comparisons of the level of driver alcohol involvement were made. Nine of the thirty comparisons (in four of the five states) were found to be statistically significant decreases. An additional 16 comparisons, while not statistically significant, also showed decreases. None of the comparisons for the rest of the nation (states at .10 BAC) were found to be statistically significant.
All of the published studies so far on the effects of .08 show significant decreases in alcohol-related fatalities using various measures. The public supports a .08 BAC level. NHTSA surveys all show that most people would not drive after consuming two or three drinks in an hour. Three recent scientific telephone polls indicate that 2 out of every 3 Americans think the BAC standard should be lowered to .08.
Most other industrialized nations have set BAC limits at .08 or lower and have had these laws in place for many years. For example, Canada, Great Britain, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, and Switzerland each have adopted a legal limit of .08 BAC. All of the states in Australia have a limit of .05 BAC, along with countries such as France and Belgium. Sweden set its limit at .02 BAC. The European Union is urging all of its 18 member countries to adopt a uniform .05 BAC limit.
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