Confessions

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Bullshit, .08 hasn't saved any more lives than .1 would have...

Yes, it has. Since it came about in '02, the reduction in deaths has increased at a greater ratio than the years prior.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Pico and ME

Yes, it has. Since it came about in '02, the reduction in deaths has increased at a greater ratio than the years prior.

No, it wasn't until 2005 that all states had .08. You're attributing the reduction of deaths which happened for many reasons, to the reduction in BAC. Also the way they now gather statistics, if a sober driver hits a drunk on a bicycle, it's an alcohol related death.

Driving drunk is bad, no question about it, but the drunks on the road are well over .1 BAC. The social drinker who is not impaired, is not a menace, is being harassed and financially raped, by this .08 bullshit. This is not an attack on drunk drivers, it's a thinly disguised attack on drinking at all.

[Lamplighter]

Aren't the DUII laws are based on greater than 0.08
and/or field sobiety tests by a LEO ?

link


The effects of alcohol intoxication are greatly influenced by individual variations among users. Some users may become intoxicated at a much lower Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) level than is shown.

0.02-0.03 BAC: No loss of coordination, slight euphoria and loss of shyness. Depressant effects are not apparent. Mildly relaxed and maybe a little lightheaded.

0.04-0.06 BAC: Feeling of well-being, relaxation, lower inhibitions, sensation of warmth. Euphoria. Some minor impairment of reasoning and memory, lowering of caution. Your behavior may become exaggerated and emotions intensified (Good emotions are better, bad emotions are worse)

0.07-0.09 BAC: Slight impairment of balance, speech, vision, reaction time, and hearing. Euphoria. Judgment and self-control are reduced, and caution, reason and memory are impaired, .08 is legally impaired and it is illegal to drive at this level. You will probably believe that you are functioning better than you really are.

0.10-0.125 BAC: Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgment. Speech may be slurred; balance, vision, reaction time and hearing will be impaired. Euphoria.

P.S., The author in this link makes a (dumb) common mistake when setting ranges.
0.02-0.03
.................<--------- what happened to 0.031 to 0.040 ?
0.04-0.06

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

snip--
P.S., The author in this link makes a (dumb) common mistake when setting ranges.
0.02-0.03
.................<--------- what happened to 0.031 to 0.040 ?
0.04-0.06

Easy question (and you already know the answer). This is simple rounding. The precision of the values in his ranges is set to the nearest one-hundredth. Which means that your question about what happens to the values from 0.031 to 0.040 is that they're rounded to the nearest hundredth and categorized accordingly. Values in the range 0.031 -- 0.034 are declared to be 0.03. Values in the range 0.035 -- 0.040 are declared to be 0.040. Obviously you could repeat this same question with the range "what happened to 0.0340 to 0.0350" ad nauseam. I'd rather have a Pepto instead.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Right, that's the only way to cram 300,000,000 into neat pigeon holes.

[Pico and ME]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

No, it wasn't until 2005 that all states had .08. You're attributing the reduction of deaths which happened for many reasons, to the reduction in BAC. Also the way they now gather statistics, if a sober driver hits a drunk on a bicycle, it's an alcohol related death.

Driving drunk is bad, no question about it, but the drunks on the road are well over .1 BAC. The social drinker who is not impaired, is not a menace, is being harassed and financially raped, by this .08 bullshit. This is not an attack on drunk drivers, it's a thinly disguised attack on drinking at all.

The rates have still gone done even when accounting for the date and impaired driver. I cant for the life of me find the link I got the chart from, but this site posts similar statistics)

Its true that serial DUI offenders have much higher bacs and are responsible for nearly 50% of the fatalities, 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.