Proposed reduction in DUI threshold has some Jacksonville bar owners angry

[marksjax]

As an operator of a bar I take drinking and driving seriously and do pay for cabs for folks that should not be driving. We are def liable here in Fla (Dram shop laws).
But .08 is really one drink an hour. Guessing .05 must be one every 90 to 120 minutes.
This proposal will have negative consequences for all food and beverage establishments.
Will def lead to more jobs lost. Not just in bars & restaurants but in suppliers, distributors and their suppliers etc.
This will result in many people getting DUI's who are not impaired. Certainly less impaired than someone talking or texting on a cell phone while driving.
This is really a gateway to prohibition it would seem to me.
We are becoming the nanny state.
My generation (baby boomers) are in charge now and we have screwed it up big time.
Walkable districts would be nice but that isn't a reality nor will it be in Jax anytime soon.
This proposal is well meaning but is an example of gov't overreach in my opinion.

[Ocklawaha]

You don't need new laws for this, the wake up call comes from the doctor when they try to revive a liver that has fallen slap out onto the floor! 

[simms3]

@ Ben Davis - we can respectfully disagree.  As a publicly quoted bar owner/master brewer, you should be prepared for people to disagree with you and question your statement, as I have (to me you took a touchy subject for many who may be customers of yours and made it all about about business).  As you point out, it probably won't get rid of the hardcore drinkers responsible for 70% of drunk driving fatalities, but it may cause the other 30% to hesitate more before getting behind the wheel, and to me that's progress (maybe not to you).

You talk about responsible adults, but in my mind the responsible thing to do is to take a cab when drinking.  There was a point in time when I was wreckless and irresponsible (never caused any accidents, never been in so much as a fender bender), but now I have been both a culprit and a victim of drinking and driving, and my perspective has long since changed.  My fraternity brothers in college took drinking and driving very seriously.  Seran wrapped one culprit to a bench and hazed the hell out of him once for pulling up in a car after coming from a bar.  It's a very different mentality to the one in Jax where nobody bats an eye.

Also, I don't think cops are out looking for DUI during daylight hours.  If you are clearly inebriated and break traffic rule or are part of an incident, they can still make the determination that you are DWI anyway.  Anyone who has been through traffic school knows that even if your BAC is 0.03 or 0.04, if you are in an accident, you could be held liable for the accident and charged with DWI.  It's already up to the responding officers.

I realize that cabs in Jax are sparse and expensive due to distance...that's a separate issue from BAC limits, in my mind.  That's an issue of personal choice to live in a more spread out manner, and as we have talked about on this site, people need to suck up to the fact that "drive until you qualify" is not as cheap as people think.  The fact that there are so few cabs is also odd, generally speaking.  People don't even take cabs in from the airport - strictly a rental car city.  I see more and more laws that could be contrived as "taking away people's liberty" in fact bringing more people together and making it more convenient and more desirable to centralize.  To me that's a good thing.

I don't want to get further into opinion about what constitutes impairment (I wouldn't want my commercial flight piloted by folks who had just a couple of glasses of wine, nor would I appreciate it if my cab driver stopped in for a couple of beers every few hours to take the edge off...but that's just me, 0.04% is the legal limit for commercial drivers already).

However, maybe it's pointing out how far behind FL (and the US) is once again on laws that are already in place regarding driving.


Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMap_of_European_countries_by_maximum_blood_alcohol_level.svg

Japan's limit is 0.03%
Most of Latin America is below 0.05%, with a few notable countries such as Brazil having a zero tolerance level.
Australia is at 0.05%
China and Israel at 0.02%

The US is alone with Canada, England, Mexico, Malaysia and Puerto Rico and in the Cayman Islands one can drive legally drunk in some place, apparently.


When it comes to Distracted Driving laws, FL is among a few states with no laws against it.  It's in the company of Missouri, Montana, and South Carolina.  Most states have total bans on texting, 37 states + DC have a total ban on cell phone usage for those under 18, and 18 states + DC have a total cell phone usage ban.  11 + DC have a hand-held ban.  I remember in GA the tickets for violating these laws were second worst to receiving a DUI less safe with no incident.  No jail-time, but maximum points and insane ticket prices.

Maybe these are just revenue generators, time will tell the impact of stricter laws.  Time has told the impact of reducing legal limit in America from 0.10% to 0.08%.  Drunk driving incidents are already far far below what they were in the 60s-80s.  I think that's telling.

NHTSA has published several comprehensive studies on the effectiveness of .08 BAC laws. These studies found consistent and persuasive evidence that .08 BAC laws are associated with reduced incidence of alcohol-related fatal crashes. A study of the effectiveness of a .08 BAC law implemented in Illinois in 1997, found that the .08 BAC law was associated with a 13.7 percent decline in the number of drinking drivers involved in fatal crashes. The reduction included drivers at both high and low BAC levels. This is significant because critics of .08 BAC laws have often claimed that these laws do not affect the behavior of high BAC drivers. The study also found that there were no major problems reported by local law enforcement or court systems due to the change in the law. An updated analysis of Illinois’s law estimated that 105 lives were saved in the first two calendar years since its implementation.

source: www.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/new-fact-sheet03/fact.../Laws-08BAC.pdf‎Cached

[fsquid]

won't prevent anything will simply fill up more drunk tanks and the county coffers.

[tufsu1]

I'm pretty sure the same thing was said when the BAC was reduced from 0.10 to 0.08....but the reduction in deaths on highways says otherwise....that said even one death due to drunk driving is too many

[JeffreyS]

I do not claim to know the science as to where the BAC should be.  I do think we should add breath ignition lock to the cars of everyone who has been convicted of a DUI for at least 10 years.  It always seems like when you hear about a drunk driving tragedy it is a repeat offender.  Perhaps insurance companies should start offering discounts to people who have them.

[duvaldude08]

Just say no drinking and driving period and call it day. Any alcohol in your system youre going to jail. Because even if your are under or at the legal limit, they can still arrest you, which is stupid as hell. Why have a "legal" limit, if you can still get in trouble?

[spuwho]

I have less concerns about lowering the BAC legal level. If people want to drink, they will drink. The "implied consent" law has brought boundaries around the actions, but cannot stop those who don't care.

Having nearly been killed by an impaired driver who blew .25 and left the scene, caught later, you would think I would be ready to crack the whip on everyone.  Not the case.

Former baseball player Mark Grace is in jail because he kept getting busted for DUI. His attorneys kept getting him off, finally with a breath/ignition interlock on his car. So what did he do before he went to a party? He borrowed a car because he knew he was going to be impaired before he even got there and didn't want to be bothered to ask for a cab or a ride. He got pulled over, arrested and thrown in jail for 2 years. Those are the people I am worried about. "Pride before a ride" is the issue.

Lowering a BAC level will not stop people like this ever.

However, the recent urge to legalize pot in several states is causing a wave of research into pot impairment when driving. It was already published that 3 grams of pot smoked can cause impairment of a motorcyclist which has much higher attention demands than driving. Pot impairment will be the next wave of oversight.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Pot impairment will be the next wave of oversight.

Yeah I blew once.....   but I didn't exhale.

[Timkin]

Just say no drinking and driving period and call it day. Any alcohol in your system youre going to jail. Because even if your are under or at the legal limit, they can still arrest you, which is stupid as hell. Why have a "legal" limit, if you can still get in trouble?

This makes sense .   +1 .. (see Duvaldude?, I don't always diss you ) 

[Ernest Street]

Pot impairment will be the next wave of oversight.

Driving down Post Street 15mph in a 30 zone...fries all over the front seat..playing Edgar Winters "Frankenstein" at a loud volumne.
Hmm Suspicious behavior?..(Try not to laugh at the Cop )..

[ChriswUfGator]

So when's the last time any of us read about a fatality that was caused by a .05 or .08 BAL? The accidents involving death or property damage aren't caused by the guy who had two beers, they're caused by the drivers who get totally shnockered and drive the wrong way on the interstate, or plow into a house just to pull two off recent news stories. This will do little or nothing to affect safety. Also, to everyone crediting the reduction from .10 to .08 with the decrease in national traffic fatalities, don't. Though I know MADD likes to claim credit, the reality is there has been one long decline in traffic fatalities since the late 1970s, reflecting the mandatory installation of seatbelts, and again when the installation of airbags became mandatory. Vehicles are far safer now, and that by itself is responsible for virtually all of the difference.

[peestandingup]

won't prevent anything will simply fill up more drunk tanks and the county coffers.

Shhhh, hush that crazy talk. The cops care about us all. Thats why they do these things, because they love us. So everyone, flag down your local neighborhood friendly traffic cop & give them a big hug. Then go hug the judges, lawyers & private prison system that demands to be filled.

Then go hug JTA for having such excellent service, the automobile manufacturers, the highway lobbyists, oil companies, developers of sprawl & anyone responsible for destroying all the public rail systems across our great country. They love you too.

[KenFSU]

It's a tougher law against drinking and driving - this is pissing people off, how?

Because it's an unnecessary, broad sweeping measure aimed to "fix" a problem that doesn't really exist (there is no epidemic of .05 BAC traffic fatalities). It would be a death sentence for many of the tens of thousands of restaurants which depend on alcohol sales for approximately 30% of their profit. It would be a massive blow to a $90 billion industry that is historically recession proof. It would make potential criminals out of moderate, responsible drinkers (one generously poured glass of wine could potentially cause a petite woman to be arrested for drunk driving). It wastes police resources and sets a dangerously low benchmark for testing that still proves to be inaccurate at times (and we certainly don't need police drawing blood for a suspected .05). A .05 legal limit is a needless, egregious buzzkill that serves no concrete purpose beyond that of a cash grab and a political feather in the cap. All that's missing is some stupid, emotionally manipulative tearjerker of a name like "Lacey's Law" to seal the deal. We have better shit to focus our limited resources now than low-level BAC witch hunts.

[Tacachale]

Whenever we criminalize something that wasn't previously, we need to seriously consider the consequences. We overuse imprisonment as it is, and this rule change would just throw more people in jail - on the taxpayers' dime. For those who do cause accidents, the policy can already handle the situation by issuing fines for speeding, careless or reckless driving, etc., which are paid directly by the offender; removing this discretion in favor of jail time (paid for by the taxpayer) is a step backwards. And no matter what, it clearly wouldn't have any affect on the drunk drivers who are causing the vast majority of the problems.

A number of countries have lower thresholds for drinking and driving, however they often have substantially different drinking cultures as well as driving cultures. In the US binge drinking as recreation is common, and people value the freedom of a car (and our urban designs often make it difficult to get around without a car, as is the case in almost all of Florida). These are deep cultural factors behind the drunk driving problem as it exists in America, and changing one law to match those in countries with different cultures wouldn't change American attitudes one iota.