It's a good graph Pico but it does not isolate .08's effect. For example it doesn't take into account
a big drop in drinking overall, a major cultural shift. Especially down is binge drinking in inexperienced drivers, the most dangerous kind:
In fact, given these trends, along with improved alcohol education, you would expect your graph to have an even larger drop-off.
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however, my husband and I are both much less inclined to drink if we are going to drive because of this limit, and I'm sure we are not alone in that regard. Its had an impact.
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Yeah, but if you did drink and drive, you would have pulled it off.
You and your husband considered the possibilities and decided not to drink. Two decades ago you would have decided which of you was in better condition to drive, and then you would have driven home; and nothing would have happened. You would have known you were impaired, it would be unusual to you, and you would have driven carefully. In fact if you knew you were actually not in condition to drive, you wouldn't have driven.
Alcoholics do not have this choice. I'm suggesting that most really serious, fatal accidents do not happen at .08, but are alcoholics who are at .15 and up.
At .08 you are three seconds slower, and you rear-end somebody at a red light, but you're going 10 MPH because you've hit the brakes, just too late.
At .13 you miss the red light entirely and T-bone somebody in the intersection. It sucks hard, but nobody (usually) dies.
But at .27 you enter the wrong ramp of the highway, go the wrong way at 50 MPH and hit someone head-on.
Because you're an alcoholic, you fail to make the right choice even if you are a PA state trooper and accident investigator who had a similar crash four months prior.
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Quigg, a trooper who had overseen DUI checkpoints on Philadelphia area highways, was placed on restricted duty following a DUI-related crash on Route 422 in Montgomery County in December 2009.
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additional story
Bonus karma: the trooper killed himself, but not his 23 year old victim. He was not wearing a seatbelt... she was.