美国国家公共电台 NPR Utah First In The Nation To Lower Its DUI Limit To .05 Percent

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ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This Sunday in Utah, the legal blood alcohol limit will drop from .08 percent to .05. It's the lowest DUI limit in the country. Nicole Nixon of member station KUER has this report.

NICOLE NIXON, BYLINE¹: A couple blocks on Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City are lined with bars. It's pretty quiet on a December weeknight. But people like Marcia and Craig Hartman are still bustling² around. Like most Utahns, the couple has mixed feelings on the state's new DUI limit. She calls it stupid. But he's more indifferent.

MARCIA HARTMAN: Oh, I just don't think it needs to be more restrictive than other states have. And he's a non-drinker.

CRAIG HARTMAN: Yeah, it doesn't bother me.

(LAUGHTER)

NIXON: Utah's strict new DUI limit passed to loud opposition³ from restaurant and hospitality groups, who worried the law would hurt business. For many Utahns, it means about half as many drinks when they go out. If you're a 180-pound man, about four drinks will get you to a blood alcohol content of .08 percent. But under the new limit in Utah, anything more than two drinks in an hour, and you're legally impaired⁴. It's even less alcohol for women.

NORM THURSTON: .08 for a lot of people is a significant amount of drinking.

NIXON: That's Norm Thurston, the Republican lawmaker who ran the bill at the request of the National Transportation Safety Board. Thurston believes the new limit will save lives because it sends a strict message that anyone who's been drinking should not get behind the wheel.

THURSTON: You would think that we're already there as a society. But one of the things that I have learned through this process is that there are a lot of people out there that think it's OK to drink and drive just a little bit.

NIXON: Critics slammed Thurston for running the bill. He's a practicing member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which urges its members not to consume alcohol. Many accused the Mormon lawmaker of trying to legislate⁵ drinkers and non-Mormons.

The American Beverage⁶ Institute, an alcohol trade organization, has been a vocal⁷ critic of the law. Spokesman Jackson Shedelbower disagrees with the assertion that it will save lives. He says the lower limit targets moderate social drinkers, not those he calls legitimately⁸ drunk drivers.

JACKSON SHEDELBOWER: Nearly 70 percent of alcohol-related fatalities⁹ in this country are caused by someone with .15 and above. And that's three times what Utah is about to go to, three times the limit.

NIXON: The law passed in 2017. But since then, there have been several attempts to roll it back, including one by state Senator Jim Dabakis earlier this year. Halfway¹⁰ through his argument in a Senate committee, the Salt Lake City Democrat¹¹ admitted he was impaired at the new legal limit.

JIM DABAKIS: I had breakfast. And then I went and had two mimosas, and I breathed at 0.5. So my entire presentation has been at 0.5.

NIXON: Tabac said he felt perfectly¹² fine, though what he meant to say was .05, not .5. Lawmakers rejected his and others' proposals, so the law will remain unchanged when it goes into effect this Sunday, the day before New Year's Eve. But will drunk driving arrests go up starting Sunday? Probably not, says Sergeant¹³ Nick Street with the Utah Highway Patrol.

SERGEANT NICK STREET: I think people are making better decisions on the front end of a night where they may go out and consume alcoholic¹⁴ beverages¹⁵ to the point where they're impaired.

NIXON: He believes the law has already had an impact even though it hasn't taken effect yet.

STREET: They're planning ahead with ride-sharing or with a designated driver with their group. Those things are happening.

NIXON: Back in the '80s, Utah and Oregon were the first states to lower their BAC limits from .10 to .08. As other states did the same in the following decades, the nation's rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths dropped 10 percent. Now Utah is hoping to be a pioneer in helping¹⁶ lower that number once again. For NPR News, I'm Nicole Nixon in Salt Lake City.

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