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Plain Talk

about matters of interest in Washington State and, often, elsewhere

July 2007




Washington State is currently patting itself on its collective back because it recently made a fifth drunk-driving conviction into a felony. Big whoop: in most states, DUI is a felony on the third or fourth conviction, and in some on the second (there's a state-by-state table available). But really, it's all nuts.

If someone staggered into the street repeatedly firing off a gun at random, I would certainly hope that even if no one was hit the perp couldn't get off with a slap on the wrist just by saying, "Hey, yer honor, it's only the fourth time I've done that." But that's exactly what our "new, improved" DUI laws allow.

The scientific evidence is consistent and unchallenged: impairment of both reflexes and judgement begins at zero alcohol--there is no "safe level". By the time one reaches a .04 percent blood alcohol content (BAC), impairment is serious enough to materially affect ability to operate a motor vehicle safely. By the time BAC reaches .08 percent--the current definition of "drunk" for U.S. drivers--the risk of serious accident, often involving fatalities, shoots up.


The available web-page citations are overwhelming in number, but here are a few specimens:

You can look up more yourself, but take care to see who has put up what you read: articles from, say, The Century Council (funded by the alcohol industry) are likely to have a different perspective than articles from, say, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).


But recognizing .08 percent as a threshhold of serious risk is not a sufficient answer, because there is still real impairment and real risk at levels under .08. The best answer is probably what Canada and most western European countries do: make driving with BACs from .05 to .08 a lesser crime, typically punished by fines and temporary license suspensions (with penalty augmentation and mandatory counselling for repeat offenders), while driving with a BAC over .08 is a serious crime punishable by nontrivial jail time and permanent designation as a felon--the same as, say, a bank robber. (But I for one would be happier yet with .04 as the lower limit here, which is what it already is for all commercial/professional drivers when in their commercial vehicles.)


And there has been an important and highly relevant "news break" since this article was first written:

A new study has found that immediate suspension of a driver's license on failure of an alcohol breath test reduces alcohol-related fatalities by approximately five percent--which would, nationwide, save an estimated 800 lives every year.

As one leading expert said of the study results:
This study proves beyond a doubt that the celerity of license sanctions is key. In other words, timing is more important than the severity of the sanction. It is an effective general deterrent because most people do not want to lose their driver's license. They are dependent upon that license for their day-to-day life's activities. The threat of losing that license if they test over the illegal BAC limit deters most of them from drinking and driving, or drinking too much and driving.
And ALS (Administrative License Suspension) must not only be on the books, it must be enforced, universally: each and every roadside breath-test failure must incur suspension right then and there--no "judgement calls". Current Washington State law "authorizes" ALS. But if you look at the State's own web sites, you find continuing references--buried in their self-praising BS about "toughest laws around" (and that really is BS)--to phrases like "can be arrested" and "the right to suspend" and "A police officer may"--but never words like requires or automatic.

That solid enforcement even of already available laws is effective is beyond doubt. Back in 2001, the NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, a division of the U.S. Department of Health) noted that:
Although research shows that license suspension reduces repeat DUI offenses, there is also evidence that up to 75 percent of suspended drivers continue to drive. Evaluation of Oregon's "zebra sticker" law suggests that marking the license plates of vehicles driven by unlicensed drivers deters both driving while suspended (DWS) and DUI by suspended drivers. A similar law in Washington State was enforced differently and had no effect.
Well, duh. People, especially those willing to drive when drunk anyway, are not likely to be concerned with laws that either are not solidly enforced or are not enforced effectively? Wow, gimme a study grant.

Just as a bank robber cannot get off with a mere fine by saying "Hey, it's just my fourth conviction", so drunk drivers must not be allowed to get off time and again--or ever--with relatively trivial punishments for using a lethal weapon in public with impaired judgement and reflexes. They need to be stopped in their tracks, first time--not given a slap on the wrist that (as the evidence overwhelmingly shows) will not and does not deter them from doing it again, and again, and again till they finally succeed in killing or maiming someone.

Considering the horrific scope of the crime, why are we as a nation so very reluctant to deal with it as we would with, say, terrorism? (Which is a not-so-different form of killing and maiming the innocent.) Doubtless the reason is sheer hypocrisy. We have no trouble calling for the most dreadful penalties for acts, even trivial ones, that we don't imagine ourselves (or our nearest and dearest) committing--but we cannot and will not demand punishment for acts, however dire, that we can imagine ourselves performing.

There are few indeed who can honestly say that they have never, ever gotten behind the wheel of a car while suspecting that they might be at least somewhat alcohol-impaired. Indeed, there are almost certainly few indeed who can say that they don't drive after drinking fairly commonly. Remember after driking doesn't mean stinking, falling-down drunk, or even legally drunk: it means just what it says, "after drinking", that is, "impaired". Because--again--remember that any non-zero BAC means impairment: it's just a question of how much impairment.


Here, courtesy of Intoximeters Inc., is a simple BAC calculator--It is well worth playing around with. (The results will open in a new browser window, which you can close after reading.) Try it out with what you think you might sometimes have had before getting into your car.

On-Line BrAC Calculator
About Disclaimer

I have had over a period of hour(s).

I am Male Female (explanation of gender differences regarding BAC)

and I weigh pounds.

About the Drink Wheel

The Intoximeters Inc. "Drink Wheel" is a form that you can fill out and then use to instantly compute your estimated blood/breath alcohol concentration ("BAC"), based on the information that you provided. It is presented as a public service by Intoximeters, Inc. Its primary purpose is to provide useful information about the responsible use of alcohol.

Intoximeters, Inc. calls it the "Drink Wheel" because it is based on various paper and cardboard BAC calculators that are given out in alcohol-awareness programs, some of which are in the form of a wheel that can be spun around to calculate your estimated BAC based on what and how much you have had to drink.

Disclaimer!

It would be extremely foolish to pretend that this "Drink Wheel" can tell you what your BAC actually is, first because it would open us up to an incredible amount of potential liability, and second because if it really did work accurately there would be no need for anyone to buy the instruments that Intoximeters, Inc. makes and sells.

A person's actual BAC is dependent on many complex factors, including their physical condition (body composition, health etc...) and what they have recently ingested (including food, water, medications, and other drugs). The Intoximeters, Inc. site includes a more detailed discussion of the Pharmacology and Disposition of alcohol in humans.

The results that are generated are rough estimates of an average healthy person's BAC assuming typical beverage sizes, recipes, and alcohol content. The BAC estimates generated by the Drink Wheel should not be used to infer anyone's fitness to work, drive, or perform any other task or duty.

I reckon that if you're being honest with yourself, you'll see that you have--probably often--driven while impaired. (And, for the umpteenth time: any alcohol impairs--it's just a matter of degree. Unless you have had zero to drink within a few hours before driving, you're impaired to at least some extent. Driving is hazardous enough when 100% stone sober.) And there, I believe, is the crux.

The "reasoning" that governs is "I'm a good person--so if I occasionally do this, it can't be that bad a thing."

Yes, it can be and is that bad a thing. Nationwide, it kills a thousand innocent men, women, and children every week. And many of the murderers--what else can we call them?--had probably at some time already stood convicted in a court saying "Hey, it was only my second/third/fourth time . . . ."

(Factoid: a driver with a BAC of .15% is three hundred times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than a sober driver.)

One doesn't have to be Savanarola to condemn driving after drinking (notice that the phrase "drunk driving" is counter-productive, because folk who have had a drink can say--and often be correct in a narrow, legalistic sense, "I'm not drunk!"); in most of the civilized world, it is taken quite seriously. And keep focus: the issue here is not persuading you that you should not drink before driving (after all, I assume you're sane)--it's how we as a society need to treat those others who do drive after drinking, so as to keep them from murdering innocent victims, because the most sober, careful driver can be smashed into by an impaired driver whose weakened judgement tells him he can make it through that yellow light just fine.

Till we face up to this problem, the rivers of innocent blood will continue to flow.


Plain Talk is a more or less monthly feature carried in the weekly Ritzville Adams County Journal.

The text appearing above is a substantially expanded version of the published feature, which is limited by word count.