A few years ago an executive at the Coors Corporation, Peter Coors, was charged with a DUI after consuming a single beer approximately 30 minutes before driving from a wedding reception. Coors’ breathalyzer tests indicated he had a blood alcohol content of between 0.073 and 0.088. He was arrested at the scene and later had his license revoked. The embarassing episode led to a humiliating apology from Coors in which he stated he should have “arranged for a ride.” Upon hearing about Coors’ experience, I remember thinking that it was crazy that an otherwise successful, upstanding citizen can be arrested and have their life turned upside down because they had a beer or two before they got behind the wheel. Sadly for Mr. Coors and the thousands of other Americans who wind up in jail, lose their jobs, and have their reputations destroyed every year because of our draconian drunk driving laws, few people seem to share my outrage.
The simple truth is that the vast majority of people can have a few drinks and be perfectly fine to drive. After consuming a few beers over the course of a couple of hours most people who choose to drive might even be less dangerous than someone who is texting while driving ( illegal, but with a slap-on-the-wrist penalty) or someone who is woofing down a cheese-steak and drinking a giant slushie (totally legal, but still dangerous). For some reason, we’ve singled out drunk driving as the big bad evil of the driving world, even though there are plenty of other absolutely crazy things going on in people’s cars. Those of us who live in the DC area have plenty of amusing/scary commuting stories that involve seeing people doing the strangest things while driving. For my own part, I’ve seen people reading the newspaper (actually a very common sight on the Beltway during rush hour), shaving, plucking their eyebrows, typing on a laptop etc. All this leaves me wondering why in the hell the government decided that drinking a couple of beers and getting behind the wheel should lead to jail time, while reading the Style section of the Post as you roll along an eight-lane highway doing 60 mph doesn’t even merit a ticket.
When you think about it, drunk driving laws rest upon a bizarre concept — i.e. that you should be arrested because you might do something bad. Arrest is therefore a preventive act designed to stop a truly serious crime, such as vehicular homicide. The idea is that people who drink are more likely to get into an accident, so the act of drinking and driving should itself be criminalized. Surely a person who drinks five shots of vodka in and hour and gets behind the wheel is more likely to get into an accident than a person who had no alcohol at all. But is a person who had three or four beers over the course of a couple of hours as part of a meal significantly more likely to be in a fatal accident than someone who has a habit of fiddling with the radio while driving? I really don’t know, but I doubt it. Another problem with drunk driving laws is that they assume anyone and everyone will be dangerously impaired once they cross some magical threshold of blood alcohol content, even though every person’s biochemistry is unique, meaning that almost any rigid blood alcohol limit will produce false-positive results — i.e. flagging some people as drunk who aren’t. The standard 0.08 limit the federal government imposed upon the states back in 2000 is insanely low and totally arbitrary. It’s a limit that bears no resemblance to anything approaching what most people would describe as “intoxication.” It’s a limit set by politicians and lawyers who were more concerned with looking tough on drunk driving and responding to MADD’s… well… mad demands than they were creating a fair and thoughtful set of laws for managing the problem of drunk driving.
So what’s the solution? Some folks argue that drinking and driving shouldn’t be illegal at all, because until you actually cause an accident drinking and driving is a victimless crime, which means it shouldn’t be a crime at all. I’m sympathetic to that position, but I’m not entirely sold. Maybe I’m a lousy libertarian, but I can see the value in having preemptive drunk driving laws that actually target DRUNK drivers, rather than drivers who happened to have consumed a couple of libations in the hours before they got behind the wheel. I’m comfortable with targeting actual drunks because I can see the value in thoughtful laws that prevent extremely costly accidents. Simply put, the costs of genuine drunk driving are potentially extremely high, so as a pragmatist I can see the value in laws that go after the sort of person who would pound vodka tonics all night and then stumble to their car and drive home. To put things in perspective, I think most people would accept that brandishing a firearm in public should be illegal even if the weapon doesn’t discharge. Most people accept this because the cost of allowing people to recklessly handle firearms in public is potentially very high, even as the cost to our liberties that comes from criminalizing such behavior is very low. Genuine drunk driving presents a similar situation and should be handled in the same fashion.
Of course, none of what I’ve written here is to suggest that our existing laws are fair. Far from it, I think they are in need of a complete overhaul. A good start would be to see the the legal limit raised to something that makes more sense and to see drunk driving tests augmented to include some physical exercises that can actually help an investigating officer make a sensible judgment about a driver’s sobriety. For example, we should consider bringing back the old line walking test. Whereas a breathalyzer can tell an officer how much alcohol is in your blood, an inability to walk in a straight line should tell the officer whether that blood alcohol level equals intoxication. It would also be nice to see an end to sobriety checkpoints, which are transparent police fishing expeditions that have no place in a liberal society.
To sum up, a few common-sense changes would go along way to increasing the fairness of our country’s drunk driving laws, without increasing the risk to public safety. Unfortunately, taking a stand against an organization like MADD is probably not high on the to-do list of many elected officials. It’s too easy to just let them have their way. After all, American politicians aren’t generally in the business of leading. They’re in the business of getting reelected.
I'm a political analyst by vocation, but not of the sort of politics I'm looking at on this site. Having had the good fortune of experiencing a number of foreign countries, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the USA is the only place for me. Although it may not seem like it sometimes, this country is still the freest, and hence the greatest on Earth. However, I worry that some of the rights and freedoms I value are under threat, so I started this site to blow off some steam and air some of my views in the hope of starting a conversation with other people out there. I'd love to hear what you think about my ideas even if you don't agree with them. 
Well I lived in Ethiopia for a while and they have a law which states that if you are drunk and cause an accident it’s not your fault as you were not in control of the vehicle at the time, but if sober then you would have to answer for the accident… it happened to a friend of mine in Addis some years ago, and it’s true!
I have been charged with a DUI. At the police station they gave me the official breath test which had a reading of .073 and .074. Unfortunately, most people do not understand that you can be charged with a DUI even if you are under .08. I was never aware of this as most people are not. The officer can charge you at almost any level.
You are an idiot.
If you look through the criminal code a minimum standard must be met inorder to meet the requirements of the law ie .08. Is it an arbitrary number that does not always reflect the actual impairment of the person? Yes; however, unless you have been living under a rock you have been made well aware it.
No system of determining impairment is perfect. The old walking test, as an example, was largely given up as there were many other explainations as to why the person was not able to walk a straight line. Someone who has just been in an accident, for example, may be experiencing some disorientation.
While blood alcohol level test may not be perfect but they do provide the most accurate evidence of how much alcohol is affecting the operator of the vehicle.
Man up! If you want to enjoy some drinks with dinner then drive at your own risk. Being an otherwise successful and upstanding citizen does not change the law that every adult in north american is aware of.
Dear Douche Bag,
I welcome the opportunity to tear asunder the ramblings of someone isn’t half as clever as he thinks he is. The question isn’t what is the perfect system, the question is what constitutes the BEST system. Your beef-brained response fails to answer that question and instead locks onto a straw man argument of your own design. In place of an actual defense for the federally mandated .08 standard, you offer up an idiotic syllogism: “no system is perfect so let’s stick with our existing crappy one and just manup and take our chances.” Sorry Dan, but a series of passionately and arrogantly stated assertions is a poor substitute for an actual argument, not to mention being an utter cop out. The goal of a sobriety test shouldn’t be to simply determine the amount of alcohol you’ve consumed, but to determine if you are SOBER! A breathalyzer is a potentially useful tool, but it needs to be supplemented with some dexterity exercises.
Sincerely,
Eddington
P.S. I recommend you avoid starting out your posts with insults. Life is easier when you don’t act like an ass.