Utah set a new record for DUI deaths in 2022. The 0.05 law hasn’t worked, Robert Gehrke writes.

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Robert Gehrke: “Utah once again set a record for DUI-related fatalities with 62 fatal crashes, breaking the record set last year and the year before.”

Utah once again set a record for DUI-related fatalities with 62 fatal crashes, breaking the record set last year and the year before.proponents of the law claimed was proof it was workingIn the four years since the law took effect, 187 people died in alcohol-related crashes, compared to 111 in the four years prior to the law.

Simple increases in population and miles traveled can’t account for such a large spike. Overall traffic fatalities have also climbed, but DUI crashes have made up a larger percentage of those deaths since the passage of the law. Obviously, I’m not suggesting the law is to blame. The drivers are. But the law hasn’t worked because it isn’t targeting the real problem — those who drink well beyond any legal limit and get behind the wheel., among those arrested for drunken driving who had a blood-alcohol level reported, 41% were above 0.15, triple the legal limit. The highest, by the way, was 0.46, an individual who should probably have been in the morgue but definitely not behind the wheel.

Meantime, over the last three years, nearly 2,100 people with an alcohol level under the old limit of 0.07% have been arrested. Arrests for those with higher blood-alcohol contents have actually declined. Figure that out. As we know, those arrests can come with a steep cost, with a first offense potentially resulting in two days in jail or community service, $1,400 in fines, the cost of treatment, a court-ordered Interlock, impound fees, a driver license suspension and higher insurance rates.But discerning when someone is 0.05 versus 0.04 is almost impossible — for the consumer, the server or the police officer.

 

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