Sunday, May 19, 2013
The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended lowering the legal blood alcohol content limit to 0.05 from 0.08. Tell us: Would you support a lower BAC? Do you think it would curb drunk driving?
Having a few drinks at that summer barbecue? You may soon have to be even more careful before getting behind the wheel. This week, the National Transportation Safety Board voted on a recommendation that would lower the legal limit for drivers' blood alcohol level to 0.05, arguing it would significantly reduce the drunk driving-related deaths reported each year. In Virginia and DC, along with all other states, the legal limit is now 0.08 — the equivalent, for a 180 pound man, of around four 12 oz beers in an hour, according to this blood alcohol content (BAC) calculator. A limit of 0.05 would hold a 180 pound man to fewer than three beers an hour before he gets behind the wheel; a 140 pound woman would be just over the limit after consuming…
Friday, March 9, 2012
Law goes into effect July 1.
RICHMOND (Capital News Service) — Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed legislation that will require first-time DUI offenders in Virginia to install a Breathalyzer in their vehicle to prevent them from driving while intoxicated. The governor signed House Bill 279 on Wednesday. As a result, beginning July 1, all Virginians convicted of DUI will have to have an ignition interlock installed in their vehicle. Currently, that requirement applies only to repeat offenders or first-time offenders with blood alcohol content higher than 0.15. Virginia will "join just 15 other U.S. states in requiring this proven effective technology for all persons convicted of drunk driving," Kurt Erickson, president of the Washington Regional Alcohol Program, said …
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Area police chiefs to drunken drivers: We'll get you.
Polly Berry remembers a wonderful Christmas Day 2006 with her family. The next day, she was beside a hospital bed where her youngest son "was struggling for his life." Greg Berry, 18, a senior at T.C. Williams High School, had gone for a ride with a friend who was driving drunk. The car smashed into a telephone pole. Both men were extracted from the mangled car by the jaws of life. He had a broken leg, cuts and a severe brain injury that claimed his life April 19, 2007. "Greg died in my arms," Polly said Friday through tears, behind her, a phalanx of area police chiefs who promised to hunt down and arrest drunken drivers this holiday season. Berry joined chiefs of police from Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince William County and a …
Barbara Glakas
6:08 am on Tuesday, May 21, 2013
David, A little bit of that is addressed in this NHTSA report. See pages 4-7. It is harder to find drinking and driving statistics for BACs lower than .08 because when they study crashes/fatalities while “impaired” by alcohol, “impairment” is legally defined as .08. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811753.pdf more ›