Not everyone's convinced new rules will help

Tuesday, September 30, 2003

By Bill Toland and Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette Staff Writers

HARRISBURG -- With the state's lower DUI limit set to be signed into law mere hours before a federal deadline elapses, opponents of the 0.08 threshold remain unconvinced that it will make Pennsylvania roads any safer or cut down on the number of drunken-driving fatalities.

	Online chart: Approximate blood alcohol percentage

The state House of Representatives yesterday approved the new limit and the new law, which creates a three-tiered punishment system for DUI offenders. Gov. Ed Rendell is expected to sign the legislation today. The Senate approved it Wednesday.

The 0.08 limit takes effect the minute the governor signs it, but the law's new penalty system won't be in place until Feb. 1.

To comply with a federal mandate, states are required to reduce the blood alcohol level at which a driver is considered drunk to 0.08 by tomorrow. The limit in Pennsylvania now stands at 0.10.

The new law, said state Rep. Rick Geist, R-Altoona, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, is a complete makeover of the state's 22-year-old DUI statute.

If the legislation hadn't been approved, the state would have forgone nearly $12 million in federal highway funds this year. An additional $22 million was at stake if the state hadn't approved changes to laws that deal with repeat DUI offenders.

The new lower limit may make bar patrons be a little more conscious of their alcohol intake, according to employees at drinking establishments in the Pittsburgh area, but it should not bring major changes in either alcohol use or business.

"I think it will cause a decline, but I don't think it will be very sharp," said Matt Biancaniello, a manager at the Sports Rock Cafe in the Strip District. "You may see more people using cabs. There are still a lot of people, especially young people, who are still going to drink the same."

Some bars have talked about how they can help their customers, outside of the usual decision not to serve someone who is visibly intoxicated.

At Moondog's in Blawnox, a plan is under discussion to line up a shuttle on weekend nights to taxi customers home or to a central parking location, said bartender Billy Maxim.

Moondog's has also moved up the starting time of their shows so bands will end their sets earlier to allow customers time to drink soft drinks or eat something before they head outside, she said. The bar, which features blues acts on the weekends, has also considered serving food later to offset the alcohol intake of customers, she said.

Among its other provisions, the new law, creates distinct punishments for DUI offenders caught driving with children in the car and increasingly stiffer penalties based on a driver's blood alcohol level. And it remands most first- and second-offense cases to a nonjury trial. The law also requires repeat DUI offenders to have ignition locking systems installed in their cars, preventing the cars from starting unless the driver is sober.

"These measures will save lives across Pennsylvania," as well as eventually reduce the number of DUI deaths and DUI cases overall, Geist said.

Matt McKinley, who lives in a Philadelphia suburb, isn't so certain.

"It's locking up the wrong people. Your problem drinkers aren't at 0.09. They're at 0.15. They're the ones that are really causing the problems, getting in the serious wrecks."

About two months ago, McKinley built an anti-0.08 Web site, called www.keeppoint10.com. He doesn't blame the state legislators for the new limit, saying that the federal government was strong-arming the states without any evidence that lower DUI thresholds save lives.

"It's the same as when they wanted the 55 speed limit," McKinley said. "We understand the state can't do much. It's the federal government that's tying the state's hands behind its back."

Evidence regarding the impact of lower DUI limits points in both ways.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, one of the law's fiercest advocates, frequently cites a 1999 Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation study, which suggests that 0.08 laws led to an 8 percent drop in fatal crashes between 1982 and 1997 in the United States.

"We see this law as a great change," said Nancy Oppedal, treasurer and former president of the state MADD branch. Her husband, son and daughter were all killed by a drunk driver in an accident 14 years ago. Oppedal was hospitalized for three months.

The drunk driver, who also died, was a repeat DUI offender.

The new state DUI law carries more severe punishments for repeat offenders, doubling fines in some cases and imposing longer jail sentences.

"If this law had been in place," she said, teary-eyed, "that tragedy could have been prevented."

The Pacific study said that if all 50 states, rather than only 15 states, had more stringent laws in place when the study was conducted, an additional 590 American lives may have been saved.

A Boston University study, conducted for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, similarly suggests that a 0.08 limit will reduce annual alcohol-related fatalities by 12 percent and serious nighttime accidents by 7 percent, when compared with a 0.10 limit.

But other, conflicting reports suggest that the 0.08 limit will do little to change the behavior of those drivers who are most dangerous, and most deadly: the repeat DUI offender whose blood alcohol level is greater than 0.15.

Those are the drivers that must be removed from the roads, but they are the least likely to be influenced by the new DUI law, according to American Beverage Licensees, a trade group of bar owners and liquor store managers.

People who are arrested with a blood alcohol content of 0.08 are "social drinkers" who have a couple of beers over dinner or after work, not the true problem drinkers, a spokesman said.

"The passage of 0.08 in Pennsylvania is another installment of the federal blackmail that has forced the states to pass laws that they wouldn't have otherwise," said Rick Berman.

Driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 is no worse than driving while talking on a cell phone, he said.

Expecting a lower DUI law to limit the number of "hard-core" drunks on the road is no different than lowering the speed limit by 5 mph and "expecting the guy who's always driving 30 mph above the speed limit to suddenly obey the law. It's not going to happen," Berman said.

He points to a 1999 study conducted by the University of North Carolina, which studied traffic records after the state reduced its DUI limit in 1993.

The three doctors who wrote the study said the 0.08 law did not show "a significantly greater decrease [in accident numbers] in North Carolina than in the states that retained a higher BAC ... [it] did not have any clear effect on alcohol-related crashes."

A study of California's 0.08 law, instituted in 1990, showed that the lower limit by itself did not reduce the number of DUI accidents or arrests.

Only after the implementation of a second series of laws, which allowed California authorities more easily to confiscate driver's licenses, did accidents decline.

The 0.08 limit is common to most industrialized countries. A few, including Sweden at 0.02 percent and Finland at 0.05 percent, have tighter limits.

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