A proposal to reduce Utah's legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers to .04 percent has federal support and would make Utah the most restrictive state in the nation.
The Alcohol Policy Coalition presented testimony Wednesday supporting the reduction to a state advisory body, the Citizens Council on Alcoholic Beverage Control. The coalition says the proposal will be presented in legislative form next year by Sen. Craig Peterson, R-Orem.Utah is one of five states that makes .08 percent the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers. Other states have limits of .10.
The Federal Aviation Administration restricts pilots to .04 percent, according to Salt Lake City-County Health Director Harry Gibbons. Federal regulations also restrict commercial truck drivers to .04 percent, said Dr. George Van Komen, chairman of the Alcohol Policy Coalition. And in Sweden, the legal limit is .02 percent.
Gibbons said there is a perception that the drinking tolerance is lower for pilots than drivers because flying an airplane is more difficult. Pilots, he said, are often thousands of feet from the ground or the nearest obstacle, while drivers on highways are often within 4 feet of another vehicle.
Van Komen said the coalition chose .04 percent as the target level for new legislation because that level was identified by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as the benchmark where there is a definite increase in the rate of fatalities, Van Komen said.
The effort also is supported by former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, who wrote to Van Komen that .04 is the target level for national health strategies through the year 2000.
Connie Harton, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said MADD supports the lower level. Several others who have been personally affected by drunken driving also told the council they support reductions.
Patrick Delaney, a wine and spirits broker, said he is not an industry spokesman but believes the alcoholic beverage industry supports measures that would save lives and minimize the negative effects of alcohol consumption. The issue is whether the intent is educating people to not drink at all or keeping drinkers from driving.
Albert Cooper, the acting chairman of the council, said there will be resistance to the measure if there is a perception it will be cumbersome for law officers to enforce and would bog down the judicial system and jails.
Van Komen said the real objective is keeping drinkers from driving and thus reducing the burden on the legal system. "The proposal would be Utah's answer to the designated-driver concept," he said, adding his belief that a safe drinking level for drivers cannot be definitively set.
"This is not an alcoholic beverage control issue. It is a public-safety issue," he said.