Should the DUI level be lowered?
The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that the blood alcohol content levels be lowered from 0.08% to 0.5% in charging motorists with driving under the influence.
There are many factors that affect one's blood alcohol content (BAC) including gender, weight, physical condition, medications and food. For a 140 pound woman, she would have to drink about 2 drinks in a 4 minute period to obtain a .05% BAC. For a man of 180 pounds, he would have to drink three or more drinks to measure at 0.05%
While the BAC levels for drunken driving is set by each state, the federal government is pressuring the states to adopt new standards.
Traditionally, there has been great opposition to lowering the BAC limit. The American Beverage Institute that represents 8,000 restaurants says that the change in the law would be targeting moderate drinkers while more than 70% of drunken-driving fatalities are caused by drivers which twice the current legal limit.
Compared with many other western countries, the U.S. has one of the highest DUI limits. Our neighbor, Canada, has the same standard as the U.S. at 0.08%. However, France, Greece and Germany and many other European nations have a 0.05% limit and some have a zero limit for young drivers.
Certainly a lower DUI limit would save lives in Washington state. It is estimated that by lowering the limit to 0.05%, the risk of a car accident would be reduced by half.
According to Deborah Hersman, chairman of the NTSB, "This [lowering legal limits] is critical because impaired driving remains one of the biggest killers."
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A 20-year-old man has been arrested after crashing his 1987 Honda Accord into a tree, killing his passenger this early this morning.
This accident is an excellent case in point that sea tbelt use saves lives. The residents of Washington state have gotten the message as we have one of the highest seatbelt compliance rates in the nation at 97.5 percent. 
Vehicular Homicide, RCW 46.61.520, while driving intoxicated face a sentencing range of 78-102 months.
Imagine driving down the highway at nighttime and then seeing the headlights of an oncoming car coming right at you. I can hardly imagine a scarier scenario. But that's what happened on Monday night around 8:30pm when a suspected drunk driver drove east in the westbound lanes of Route 8.
As a personal injury attorney, our concern is that there will be stoned -- impaired -- drivers on the highway that cause accidents that cause property damages, seriously injures innocent people and kills people.
Last year, the number of DUI arrests in King County during the same campaign was 452.
Washington is only one of 15 states that require everyone convicted of DUI to install an ignition interlock device if they want to continue driving. Other states only make the requirement of repeat offenders or those with a very high BAC.
A person can be convicted of