[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 29 (Monday, March 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2078-S2079]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LAUTENBERG (for himself and Mr. DeWine):

  S. 412. A bill to provide for a national standard to prohibit the 
operation of motor vehicles by intoxicated individuals; to the 
Committee on Environment and Public Works.


                     THE SAFE AND SOBER STREETS ACT

 Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I introduce a bill that, if 
enacted, will go a long way toward reducing the deadly combination of 
drinking and driving. I am proud to stand with Senator Mike DeWine of 
Ohio in introducing this bill. The Safe and Sober Streets Act of 1997 
sets a national illegal blood alcohol content [BAC] limit of .08 
percent for drivers over 21 years of age. The bill gives States that 
have a limit above .08 BAC, 3 years to adopt .08 laws. States that fail 
to enact this limit will have a percentage of their highway 
construction funds withheld.
  Mr. President, drunk driving continues to be a national scourge that 
imposes tremendous suffering on the victims of drunk driving accidents 
and their loved ones. In 1995, drunk driving increased for the first 
time in a decade. That year, 17,274 people were killed in alcohol-
related crashes. Every one of those deaths could have been prevented, 
had the driver decided to call for a ride, handed the keys to a friend, 
or did anything other than taking the wheel.
  Every 30 minutes someone in America--a mother, husband, child, 
grandchild, brother, sister--dies in an alcohol-related crash. The 
numbers are increasing. Our highways are turning into death traps and 
our concrete clover leaves into killing fields.
  Mr. President, we have made progress over the past few decades in the 
fight against drunk driving. In 1982, 53 percent of motor vehicle 
fatalities involved alcohol; today, alcohol-involved motor vehicle 
crashes is 40.5 percent. In 1984, I authored the bill that President 
Ronald Reagan signed into law to increase the drinking age to 21. Since 
1975, 21 drinking age laws have saved roughly 15,700 lives. And, 2 
years ago, Congress passed and President Clinton signed into law a zero 
tolerance bill with sanctions, making it illegal for drivers under 21 
years of age to drive with any amount of alcohol in their system.
  While that shows promise, we know we must do more--17,274 lives lost 
is 17,274 too many. Instituting a national standard for impaired 
driving at .08 BAC is the next logical step in the fight against drunk 
driving.
  There are those who ask why the standard for impaired driving should 
be .08 BAC. But I think the better question is: why should the standard 
be as high as .10? We know that any amount of alcohol affects motor 
skills and driving behavior to some degree. A 1991 study by the 
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety indicates that each .02 increase 
in the BAC of a driver with nonzero BAC, nearly doubles the risk of 
being in a fatal crash. This means that the risk a driver faces begins 
much earlier than when his or her blood alcohol content is at .10 or 
.08, after the first or second drink. In fact, the National Highway 
Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] reports that in single vehicle 
crashes, the relative fatality risk of drivers with BAC's of .05 and 
.09 is over 11 times greater than for drivers with a BAC of zero.
  Mr. President, .08 BAC is not an insignificant level. A 170 lb. male 
must consume four and a half drinks in 1 hour on an empty stomach to 
reach .08 BAC. This is not social drinking. While most States have .10 
BAC as their legal limit, it is actually at .08 BAC where driving 
skills are seriously compromised. At that level, the vast majority of 
drivers are impaired when it comes to critical driving tasks. Braking, 
steering, speed control, lane changing, and divided attention are all 
compromised at .08 BAC.

  Thirteen States have .08 BAC limits, and many industrialized 
countries have .08 BAC limits or lower. Canada, Great Britain, Austria, 
and Switzerland have .08 BAC limits. France and The Netherlands have a 
.05 BAC limit. They adopted these laws because they know that

[[Page S2079]]

they work. They work for these reasons:
  First, .08 BAC laws have proven to reduce crashes and fatalities. 
Most States that have adopted the .08 BAC level have found a measurable 
drop in impaired driving crashes and fatalities. A study conducted by 
Ralph Hingson, ScD. and published in the American Journal of Public 
Health showed that those States that adopted .08 BAC laws experienced a 
16-percent decline in the proportion of fatal crashes involving fatally 
injured drivers whose BAC were .08 or higher. And, those same States 
experienced an 18-percent decline in the proportion of fatal crashes 
involving drivers whose BAC was .15 or higher. That means that not only 
did the rates decrease for overall drinking and driving, but also for 
drivers who were extremely impaired. This same study concluded that if 
.08 BAC were adopted nationwide, 500 to 600 lives would be saved 
annually. That alone should be enough to convince all of us that this 
should be a national standard.
  Second, .08 BAC laws deter driving after drinking. Crash statistics 
show that even heavy drinkers, who account for a high percentage of DWI 
arrests, are less likely to drink and drive because of the general 
deterrent effect of the .08 BAC.
  All of these facts, Mr. President, show us that .08 BAC needs to be a 
national standard, not just an option. Different standards lead to 
different perceptions, and in this case these differences can be 
deadly. In regions with high interstate traffic, a driver should not be 
considered ``impaired'' in one State, and then is legally sober by 
simply crossing a border. Pedestrians, passengers, and safe drivers 
should be protected no matter in which part of our nation they are.
  Mr. President, we know that .08 BAC laws work. We know that .08 BAC 
saves lives. It is incumbent upon us to make sure that .08 BAC laws are 
adopted. That's why my bill gives States 3 years to adopt .08 BAC laws. 
If a State does not meet that deadline, the Secretary of Transportation 
will withhold 5 percent of a State's total Interstate Maintenance, 
National Highway System, and Surface Transportation Program funding 
combined in fiscal year 2001, and 10 percent for each year thereafter 
until that State adopts the .08 BAC limit.
  Mr. President, sanctions work. While incentive grant programs allow 
States to decide whether to pass laws on their own, they are 
notoriously underfunded and States pay little attention. Since the 
inclusion of the .08 BAC limit as an incentive criteria, only seven 
States have passed laws due to that incentive. The Federal Government 
has a role to play to ensure that our highways and roads are safe, and 
that drunk driving is decreased. The public is on our side. We must not 
back down.
  Mr. President, .08 BAC limits save lives. This bill, if enacted into 
law, will work. I urge all my colleagues to join in the fight to 
decrease drunk driving, to make our roadways safer, and most important, 
to provide comfort to those victims of drunk driving and their families 
that the Federal Government stands behind them in the memories of their 
loved ones.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, according to the National Highway Traffic 
Safety Administration, there were 17,274 alcohol-related traffic 
fatalities in 1995. Each year, 1 million people are injured in alcohol-
related traffic crashes. Alcohol is the single greatest factor in motor 
vehicle deaths and injuries.
  It is estimated that alcohol-related crashes cost society over $45 
billion every year, when you count up items like emergency and acute 
health care costs, long-term care and rehabilitation, police and 
judicial services, insurance, disability and workers' compensation, 
lost productivity, and social services for those who cannot return to 
work and support their families. Just one alcohol-related fatality is 
estimated to cost society $950,000. The cost of each alcohol-related 
injury averages $20,000.


                           fixing the problem

  The legislation we are introducing today would enact nationally a 
strategy that has been proven to work against alcohol-impaired 
driving--making it per se illegal to have a .08 level of blood alcohol 
content [BAC] when driving.
  An illegal per se law makes it illegal in and of itself to drive with 
an alcohol concentration measured at or above the established legal 
level. Forty-eight States have established a per se law. Thirty-five 
States have established per se laws at .10 BAC. Thirteen others have 
established the law at .08 BAC.
  Virtually all drivers are substantially impaired at .08 BAC. 
Laboratory and on-road tests show that the vast majority of drivers, 
even experienced drivers, are significantly impaired at .08 BAC with 
regard to critical driving tasks such as braking, steering, lane 
changing, judgment, and divided attention. The risk of being in a crash 
rises with each BAC level, but rises very rapidly after a driver 
reaches or exceeds .08 compared to drivers with no alcohol in their 
systems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has 
concluded that in single-vehicle crashes, the relative risk for drivers 
with BAC's between .05 and .09 is over 11 times greater than for 
drivers with no alcohol in their systems.
  The .08 laws reduce the incidence of impaired driving at .08. 
However, they reduce even more the incidence of impaired driving at 
high BAC's over .15.
  Most States with a .08 law have found that it has helped decrease the 
incidence of alcohol-related fatalities. In California, NHTSA found 
that the State experienced a 12-percent reduction in alcohol-related 
fatalities. A recent study conducted by a professor at Boston 
University compared the first five States to lower their BAC limit with 
five nearby States with a .10 limit. Overall, the .08 States 
experienced a 16 percent reduction in the proportion of fatal crashes 
with a fatally injured driver whose BAC was .08 or higher, as well as 
an 18 percent reduction in crashes where the fatally injured driver's 
BAC was .15 or higher. The study concluded that if all States lowered 
their BAC limits to .08, alcohol-related highway deaths would decrease 
by 500-600 per year.
  Furthermore, .08 laws make it easier to arrest and convict drivers 
with BAC's of .10 or .11 because these are no longer borderline cases.
  Laws establishing a .08 per se limit serve as a powerful deterrent to 
drinking and driving--sending a message that the State is getting 
tougher on drunk driving, and making people think twice about getting 
behind the wheel. I strongly support this legislation.
                                 ______