On behalf of Weisman, Kennedy & Berris Co., L.P.A. posted in Car Accidents on Wednesday, January 29, 2014.

A good many people in Ohio and nationally complain that drunk driving laws are unfair.

They note specifically that the 0.08 blood-alcohol content level that marks the line for DUI legal liability makes it difficult to even go out on a weekend evening and have a drink or two at a favorite restaurant, bar or club and drive back home. People often remark that they feel perfectly fine about getting behind the wheel when they have carefully limited themselves to no more than a couple alcoholic beverages.

Those people aren’t going to like the findings of a recent DUI-related study and the conclusions of the researchers who conducted it.

The bottom line, according to a University of California, San Diego, research team, is this: Even a single drink is too much and, given that any alcohol in a driver’s system heightens the risk of a car accident, the United States needs to rethink the BAC threshold that applies uniformly across the states. No matter what the drinking level is reduced too, drivers will still need representation if they have to go to court. This is where jacksonville dui lawyers and similar firms, will be needed to help with legalities.

What should that threshold be?

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the 0.08 percent limit should be dropped appreciably, down to a BAC level of 0.05 everywhere across the country. That would align the United States with the standard already in play in more than 100 other countries.

David Phillips, lead author of the UC-San Diego team, says that the relevant data “provide support for yet greater reductions in the legal BAC” beyond even the 0.05 level.

Phillips and his team based their findings on a study of more than half a million fatal vehicle crashes where alcohol use was noted by investigating authorities.

Source: Claims Journal, “Even very low BAC levels associated with causing car crashes,” Jan. 17, 2014