Gov. Doyle signed legislation this summer to lower Wisconsin’s allowable blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) from 0.1 to 0.08. Federal officials estimate this new limit will save two dozen lives per year.
State legislators rushed to finish the bill, which was first introduced in the 1997-98 legislative session, in order for the state to apply for nearly $3 million in federal highway aid by July 15. Otherwise, Wisconsin would have lost an estimated $27 million in highway funds by 2004.
The new BAC standards were set by former President Clinton in a 1998 campaign to prevent drunk-driving deaths. Two years later, Congress passed the U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2001 Appropriation Act, requiring states to pass a first-offense 0.08 BAC by Sept. 30, 2003, or begin losing federal highway-construction funds. Wisconsin is the 44th state to lower the limit.
Gov. Doyle said the legislation is long overdue for Wisconsin and signing the bill into law is “an important step” toward making the state’s highways safer.
“If Wisconsin had adopted 0.08 when I first proposed it 12 years ago, an estimated 250 lives could have been saved,” Doyle said.
Opponents of the law say the federal government used the highway money to blackmail states into passing a law that targets social drinkers.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victims Assistant Coordinator Lindsay Desormier disagrees.
“Our main concern is saving lives,” she said. “Our hope is [the new law] will make people think before they go out and drink.”
Research shows that an individual’s functioning is impaired at 0.08. This level means it will take the average woman three drinks in an hour, and four for a man, to reach the legal limit.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the new limit will save 24 lives annually in Wisconsin. This number is based on reduced fatality rates in other states with the 0.08 limit.
Several downsides to the law surfaced while legislators debated the issue. An increase in operation-while-intoxicated arrests and prosecutions would mean increases in OWI-related caseloads in municipal and circuit courts.
“You’re talking about increasing the most significant kind of traffic cases,” Dane County assistant district attorney John Burr told the Wisconsin State Journal. “We don’t have enough people to do what we have to do now.”
Lowering the legal BAC will also fail to address the problem of repeat offenders who are involved in most of the drunk-driving accidents. But it is a step in the right direction, Desormier said.
“Our hope is to decrease fatalities.”
Another concern is the possibility of a decrease in profits for businesses involved in alcohol consumption, if customers choose to drink less or visit these businesses less frequently.
However, the added highway funding ultimately influenced the decision.
“[The federal money] is not what we wanted to change the law,” Desormier said. “But we’ll take it.”
The bill was signed July 3 and will take effect Sept. 30.
