CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SACRAMENTO : New Blood-Alcohol Limit Boosts Arrests

The state’s tougher new blood-alcohol limit helped raise drunk-driving arrests by 4% in thefirst half of January compared to the same period in 1989, the California Highway Patrol reported. Commissioner Maury Hannigan said CHP officers arrested 5,407 people for driving under the influence from Jan. 1 though Jan. 15. Of those, 462 had a blood-alcohol level of .08% or .09%. Many of those drivers might have been released before Jan. 1, the effective date of the new law that lowered the standard from .10% to .08%--the level at which a driver is presumed to be too impaired to drive safely. Drivers whose blood-alcohol levels are below the limit in some cases still can be prosecuted successfully if it can be shown that their driving was impaired. The arrests this year indicate that “this new law will be a valuable weapon in the war against the impaired driver,” Hannigan said. In 1989, the CHP arrested 5,197 people for drunk driving during the same period, or 210 fewer than this year, he said.