State Senate OKs Lowering Intoxication Limit to .08%

The Senate, continuing the Legislature’s effort to crack down on drinking drivers, passed legislation Thursday that would lower the legal limit for intoxication.

The bill, sent to the Assembly on a 24-3 vote, would lower from .10% to .08% the blood alcohol concentration level used to determine whether a person is presumed to be driving under the influence.

At the .08% level, experts say just about everyone’s ability to drive is impaired, even though they may not be falling-down drunk or even showing outward signs of inebriation.

The bill’s author, Sen. Bill Leonard (R-Big Bear), said .08% was chosen because medical studies show that once people reach that level their ability to function behind the wheel is impaired by 20% or more.

According to a study by the Maine Highway Safety Commission, a person who weighs 120 pounds would reach a blood alcohol level of .08% by consuming about three drinks in an hour; a person weighing 160 would reach that level after four drinks, and a person weighing 200 pounds would reach the level after five drinks. In the study, a “drink” was defined as 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine or 1 1/2 ounces of 86-proof liquor.

Leonard, during the Senate debate, said at the .08% level, drivers “no longer have the ability to divide their attention between simple tasks such as steering and braking at the same time.”

Supporters said the bill could save lives as well as lead to an increase in the number of successful drunk driver prosecutions.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who visited the Senate chamber after the vote, called the legislation “a good bill” but said he would have preferred a bill that dropped the minimum blood alcohol standard to .05%.

Reiner said that at the current level of .10%, “people can still do a lot of serious drinking before they reach the limit.”

“If you get the limit down far enough, you get people to think of drinking and driving differently--like, if you are going to drink, that’s fine, just make arrangements for someone else to drive. You can walk around just fine with a .05, .06 or .07. But you really shouldn’t be driving,” Reiner said.

Nearly two dozen groups are supporting the bill, including Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, the California Medical Assn., the California Highway Patrol and the state PTA.

The measure is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice.

Oakland attorney Ed Kuwatch, a member of the criminal justice attorneys group and author of a text for lawyers titled “California Drunk Driving Law,” said the bill is flawed because it sets arbitrary standards for everyone regardless of their capacity to drink alcohol.

“It’s a medical and legal fraud to claim that everyone is under the influence, even at .15. The only purpose of lowering the level to .08 is to obtain convictions more easily,” he said.

Kuwatch argued that “there is very little scientific support for the idea that everyone is impaired at .08.”

Leonard, during the floor debate, said, “It is true that some people are more tolerant to alcohol than others, but medical studies have shown that everyone is under the influence and has their driving ability deteriorate markedly by the .08 standard.”

The current standard of .10% was established in legislation that was enacted in 1981. The law went into effect in 1982 and survived a constitutional challenge based on the argument that drivers had no way of knowing when they had reached their legal limit.

A legislative staff analysis of Leonard’s bill cited a report by the U.S. Department of Transportation that was based on a review of 177 scientific studies of the effects of low doses of alcohol on driving-related skills. The report said the majority of studies found that there is impairment of driving abilities at .07%, sometimes less.

Steve Kohler, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, said officers make drunk-driving arrests on the basis of a driver’s behavior, then administer blood, urine or breath tests to determine the blood alcohol level. He said even though the current legal level is set at .10%, a person can be cited for drunk driving at lower levels if the arresting officer believes the driver is obviously drunk.

The .10% level is the standard in most states for presumption of drunk driving, but three states--Oregon, Utah and Maine--have a level of .08%. In all three states, the law stipulates that anyone with a blood alcohol concentration of .08% is automatically guilty of driving under the influence, and there is no chance of legal rebuttal.

Under the Leonard bill, however, the .08% level would be rebuttable, as is the current California limit of .10%. That means attorneys could argue that the drivers were not impaired and conceivably could win.

During the debate on the bill, Sen. Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), one of the three legislators who voted against it, said law enforcement efforts should be concentrated on seriously drunk drivers.

“We ought to be getting the .20 people off the highway, in jail, in rehabilitation programs,” Lockyer said.