Featured Article: "America's High Drunk-Driving Limit"

This article by Dana G. Smith for The New York Times explores what counts as drunk when it comes to driving and whether that standard needs to be changed in the United States. As an organization whose vision is a nation free from alcohol-related disease, death, and injury, the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance supports lowering the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit for driving from 0.08 to 0.05 percent. The United States is an outlier nation with one of the highest BAC limits in the world and, as a result, has one of the highest DUI-related fatality rates in the world. Strong research evidence points to the benefits of this lower level which numerous national and international organizations endorse. Lowering the BAC limit for impaired driving to 0.05 is the most effective legislation known by research science to reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes and fatalities. For more information, please refer to the testimony we submitted in support of recent legislation to lower the BAC in Connecticut and Hawai‘i.