In 2019, Utah became the first and only state to make it illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of 0.05% or higher. All other states and the District of Columbia use a 0.08% standard. „Because of the pandemic and so many other issues that have put the restaurant industry in trouble, there really wasn`t an effective way to measure the impact of 0.05 and what we thought it was because it happened for other reasons,” said Melva Sine, executive director of the restaurant association, at FOX 13. I told you two years ago that Utah`s first law in the country reducing official alcohol levels under the influence of alcohol to 0.05% would have little impact on anything except saving lives. Since you can`t count lives that haven`t been lost, you won`t see the headlines about it. However, we know that all the desperate warnings about innocent people behind bars and beatings for tourism were wrong. That`s what happened to Utah`s 0.08% law all those years ago. Dabakis had proposed a bill to delay the new legal limit until three other states lowered theirs first. He came to a legislative hearing in 2018 after drinking a few mimosas to underscore his claim that a blood alcohol level of 0.05% is not dangerous and that law enforcement would needlessly ruin lives. In 1998, former President Bill Clinton launched a national standard to establish the notion of legal intoxication. Clinton demanded that a national blood alcohol limit of 0.08% or higher be set as a federal standard. As a result, all states now officially adopt 0.08% blood alcohol levels as a standard, but some have enacted various additional laws, such as Utah.
The National Transportation Safety Board, an independent body responsible for investigating traffic accidents, including those on the road, urged states nearly a decade ago to reduce their blood alcohol levels from 0.08 percent to 0.05 percent or less. Utah was the only state to do so. The new federal report, released earlier this month, sensed an opportunity for the government and external security advocates. Since the blood alcohol level has a negative effect on driving, the main goal of lowering the legal blood alcohol limit is to reduce the number of car accidents due to alcohol consumption. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported 10,874 alcohol-related deaths in the United States in 2017.2 Research shows that a threshold of 0.05 would prevent 1800 deaths, or 11% of fatal alcohol-related car crashes in the United States.9 It was the NTSB before Homendy`s arrival in 2018 that recommended the 0.05 limit adopted by Utah in 2013. He outlined a multi-pronged path to eliminating alcohol-related deaths and collisions, including special courts and programs to reduce recidivism, expand the use of ignition interlocks and ensure high visibility. Utah is the only state in the country with a blood alcohol level of 0.05, which is the strictest. FOX 13 recently requested data from the Utah Department of Public Safety`s Bureau of Highway Safety on drunk driving arrests and accidents since the law went into effect on Dec. 30, 2018. Although the law was passed by the Utah legislature in 2017 and signed into law by Governor Gary Herbert, its effective date has been pushed back to December 30, 2018.
It`s no coincidence that it`s New Year`s Eve that many people celebrate with too much alcohol and alcohol-related injuries and deaths increase. Some opponents of Utah`s stricter drunk driving law said they were unfazed by the federal study`s findings, arguing that the policy was an overload of government in a heavily Mormon state where abstaining from drinking alcohol is a matter of faith for many. With its new legal blood alcohol limit, will Utah become the first state for the lowest number of drunk driving deaths? According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, it will take three to five years to analyze the data and determine the impact of the new law.4 Drunk and impaired driving is a serious health risk in the United States, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 29 people die every day in car crashes across the country. involving an alcohol-impaired driver. That`s the equivalent of one death every 50 minutes, with the annual cost of alcohol-related accidents totaling more than $44 billion. „It was created by people who pride themselves on never taking a sip of alcohol in their lives,” said former Sen. Jim Dabakis, who was a Democrat. 2. Alcohol limits are personal • Several factors affect blood alcohol levels, including the number of drinks, age, gender, body weight and time since the first drink. One drink, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is equivalent to 1.5 ounces of alcohol, 12 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine. However, the National Transportation Safety Board, which supports a 0.05 limit and would like to see it implemented nationally, said many studies show that impairment begins after an alcoholic beverage and impairment is significantly impaired at 0.04 — the blood alcohol limit for commercial truck drivers.
This time, the American Beverage Institute and other advertisements in Colorado, Idaho and Nevada were launched to discourage tourists from coming to Utah. If they did, they would likely go with a DUI, an ad said. Another said people over 65 were just as likely to drive poorly as someone with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent, and then listed several Utah lawmakers who should have their licenses revoked because of their age. „The purpose of such a policy is to save lives, and what the NHTSA study shows is that Utah was able to save lives without harming its state`s economy,” said David H. Jernigan, a professor at Boston University`s School of Public Health who has worked on alcohol policy issues for 35 years. The 0.05 percent standard is used in a few other countries, and Utah`s experience shows that „it can work in this country too,” Jernigan said. Every 48 minutes in America, a person dies in an accident under the influence of alcohol.1 Given these statistics, it`s no wonder Utah`s lawmakers have tightened their grip on driving under the influence of alcohol. Zum 30. In December 2018, Utah became the first state to reduce the legal blood alcohol level (BAC) for drivers over the age of 21 from 0.08% to 0.05%.2 Notably, in March 2019, Utah increased the alcohol content allowed in retail beer from 3.2% to 4% by weight, but remains one of the few states to have the lowest alcohol content for beer.
sold in retail stores.3 „Accident analyses showed reliable reductions in accident rates and alcohol participation in accidents related to the new law that matched or exceeded those observed or predicted in previous investigations,” the study concluded. Over the past decade, legislation to reduce blood alcohol levels has been proposed in half a dozen other states, but it has not passed. When asked if he was considering legislation to further lower blood alcohol levels, the member answered. Thurston told FOX 13, „No.” As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Thurston had previously insisted that Utah`s dominant faith, a major force in the state`s alcohol policy, was not involved in the new law because it described it as a matter of public safety. The researchers said that despite the lower limit on blood alcohol levels, the state`s alcohol sales have not suffered, as alcohol sales and per capita consumption have actually increased, as have tourism and tax revenues. Arrests for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) also did not increase significantly after the law came into force. Utah`s lower blood alcohol standard for drivers has led to fewer road fatalities and improved road safety, according to a new federal study. But a new federal study that looked at what happened after the law was passed in 2017 found that Utah`s fatality rate was declining faster than neighboring states and the country as a whole. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration`s analysis also found that alcohol was less likely to be a factor in crashes. And the changes came without impacting Utah`s tourism industry, according to the study. UHP has seen an increase in alcohol-related deaths over the past two years, with 61 reported in 2020 and so far in 2021.
A report from the Highway Safety Board states that in crashes, only 3.1 percent of crashes from 2016 to 2020 involved an alcohol-related driver, but „they accounted for nearly 21 percent of motor vehicle fatalities over the same period.” 5. Data will be tracked • The Utah Department of Public Safety will collect numbers on alcohol-related injuries and deaths, said Thurston, director of the state`s Bureau of Health Statistics and a self-proclaimed research and numbers man. „It will take three to five years,” he said, „to see the full effect of the law.” Dabakis argues that people who drink a drink or two face the „devastating effects” of being arrested for drunk driving, including job losses and high insurance rates, while it is the heaviest drinkers who kill the most people.