Drunk Driving: Overview

I read an article on Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society titled, "Drunk Driving: Overview." The article began with a horrible story about a man that killed a teenage jogger while driving drunk. Unfortunately, this is a story that is much too common, but this story had a bit of a twist to it making it different than the rest. This man had had his license suspended 17 times before hitting the 15-year-old and was serving time for causing a multi-car accident just a month before this occurred.

Drunk driving is a problem throughout the country. People make poor decisions and instead of having a designated driver, people drive while under the influence, putting their lives and the lives of others on the road at risk. The national law is that a person is considered to be intoxicated and eligible for a DUI when they have a blood alcohol level of 0.08. According to this article, “drivers with a blood-alcohol level of only 0.05 percent have impaired reflexes and judgment. Research indicates that a level of 0.08 percent increases the risk of a crash by a factor of ten.” This is extremely shocking because the level that is considered to be legal has been proven by research to be past the point of impairment and at the point in which there is a very high risk of a crash. If this is the case, then why isn’t the legal limit lowered to a blood-alcohol level of 0.05, for example? It seems as if this may be an easy solution that could limit the amount of drunk driving fatalities nationwide.