Should DUI Alcohol Limit Be Lowered to .05 Percent?

One drink could be the standard for drunken driving – at least for some people if the National Transporation Safety Board has its way.

On Tuesday, the NTSB recommended states lower the blood-alcohol threshold for driving under the influence from 0.08 percent to 0.05 percent.

What do you think? Is the proposal reasonable?

About 10,000 deaths a year are related to drunken driving. The NTSB says the lower limit would save 500 to 800 lives a year.

Officials at the American Beverage Institute called the proposal "ludicrous." It said the average woman could reach the 0.05 percent limit by having one drink.

Internationally, only a handful of countries, including Canada, the United States and England, have a BAC limit of .08 while most of the world has it set at .05 or less. Some countries, such as Norway and Sweden have a .02 limit, which is essentially a zero tolerance for DUI.

Act 24, which lowered Pennsylvania's legal limit of alcohol from .10 to .08, was enacted in 2003.

Some counties in our Patch area—Bucks, Montgomery and Chester—rank in the top 10 for the most traffic-related deaths in the state, based on 2011 statistics from the Pennsylvania Bureau of Highway Safety and Traffic Engineering. There were 428 alcohol-related deaths in the state that year; here’s the breakdown of alcohol-related deaths for our area:

• Bucks, 20 (The 2^nd highest number of deaths in the state)
• Chester, 14 (Tied for 7^th highest number of deaths in the state)
• Delaware, 4 (Tied for 16^th highest number of deaths in the state)
• Lehigh, 12 (Tied for 9^th highest number of deaths in the state)
• Montgomery, 13 (Tied for 8^th highest number of deaths in the state)
• Northampton, 8 (Ted for 12^th highest number of deaths in the state)
• Philadelphia, 23 (Ranked 1st in highest number of deaths in the state)