EDITORIAL
Drunken driving: How low should rules go?

A Los Angeles Times story in last Tuesday's Advertiser highlighted an ongoing debate that must not be allowed to get stalled by irrelevant dogma or rationalization: What's the right blood-alcohol content to legally define drunken driving?

The Times reports that 16 states are resisting the effort to reduce the threshold blood-alcohol content from 0.10 to 0.08 percent. Hawai'i, since 1995, is among the states with the lower level. Other states later lowered the level because of a 1998 federal directive that deprives nonconforming states of millions of dollars in federal highway funds.

The argument for lowering blood-alcohol content for drivers is pretty simply that the less we drink, the less alcohol impairment, and the fewer highway deaths. Federal officials argue that 0.08 laws are worthwhile because they have saved lives — and that 40 percent of highway deaths still involve alcohol.

But while some states still oppose 0.08 laws, others are considering laws that would lower the blood alcohol content (BAC) threshold even further.

The problem of drunk driving has now largely been reduced to a "hard core of alcoholics who do not respond to public appeal," according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization that advocates greater BAC reductions.

The issue seems to be a matter of contention between those who think:

• Since almost half of fatally injured drunk drivers have over twice the legal limit in their systems, there's little point in harassing drivers who, with a beer or two under their belts, still drive more safely than those who eat hamburgers, yell at kids or dial up a cell phone while driving.
• Those who would like to see gradually increasing pressure for zero tolerance for drinking and driving. They point to some foreign countries with draconian penalties for having even trace amounts of alcohol in the blood.

Objective statistical study has not yet made a telling public policy case for either side. At what point does reduction of blood alcohol thresholds produce diminishing returns? And how will zero tolerance laws make any difference in getting drunken drivers off the roads who already scoff at present laws?

The argument is distorted by the biases of makers and sellers of alcoholic beverages, by those who oppose any use of such beverages on sectarian grounds, and by those problem drinkers whose idea of "a beer or two" amounts to denial.

Do we believe that no one should drive after drinking, and if so, how do we write laws that make that happen in a highly mobile society that tolerates social drinking? It's a debate that needs a lot more science, and a lot less smoke, than we've seen to date.