Five beers in two hours, and I’m not legally drunk in NJ
I’m 6-feet-3-inches, I weigh 200 pounds, and I’ve been drinking booze for 30 years. I don’t often drink a lot, but I do drink often. (I should probably stop, but that’s a column for another day.)
Point being is I’m a pro when it comes to this. And so I know my limits, know how much I can imbibe without getting a sidelong look from my wife because I just said something stupid.
As such, I know this: If I slugged back the better part of five American lagers in two hours, I’d be past buzzed and nearing drunk. If I put down a bottle of chianti in the same timeframe I’d be more than a bit stumbly. Same with five bourbons, neat.
And guess what? All things being equal, I’d be below the legal limit. Yep. All of those scenarios outlined above — roughly five drinks in two hours — puts me below the drunk driving limit of .08 BAC.
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In 2016, the last year numbers are available, 10,497 people died on American roads in alcohol-impaired accidents.
The good news? That number is a third of what it used to be 30 years ago.
The bad news? Over 10,000 people died because someone was a jackass and they got behind the wheel after they had too much to drink.
***** DISCLAIMER: There but for the grace of God go I, because back 30 years ago, I’d (mom and dad look away) routinely drive drunk. From Saturday night high school parties up through my mid-20s, I didn’t think twice before I got behind the wheel. Neither did my friends. Please note we weren’t hellions; we all came from good families, knew the dangers, all grew up to become lawyers, doctors, teachers, what have you, but yeah: We were jackasses. You probably were too. *****
Senseless. That’s the word that comes to mind every time you hear about a drunk driving accident. We in the media drop our “no adjectives” rule when it comes to drunk driving deaths. They are all senseless.
Like the one that happened with those TCNJ students. Talk about senseless. The driver — who was “impaired,” according to prosecutors — crossed a double yellow line in an effort to pass another car, then smashed into the car carrying the TCNJ students. At the time of this writing one of the students has died from his injuries, and several remain hospitalized.
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Utah, as of this January, will become the first state in the nation to lower the BAC limit to .05.
For me, at .05, a touch more than beers in two hours would put me over the limit.
A little more than three glasses of wine.
Three shots of booze. Now: *Could* I drive under those circumstances? Absolutely I could. I know myself. I could handle it. No question.
But …
I shouldn’t. I know that. And if I got into an accident and hurt someone, I’d know it was the fault of the booze. My fault, in other words.
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We live in an age of Uber and Lyft. We live in an age where thankfully - alcohol-related driving deaths have fallen by 67 percent. We live in an age of knowledge, where we know drunk driving is stupid.
So why not have our laws catch up with knowledge? Why not lower the legal limit for blood alcohol content to .05? We wouldn’t be alone; as I said, Utah is on it.
So is Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland … and that’s just Europe.
In fact, many other European countries have limits lower than .05. Russia checks in at .035, Poland at .02, .03 in Serbia, .02 in Norway.
Countries all over the world have BAC legal limits lower than ours.
I couldn’t find one country with a higher one.
To repeat: At .08, New Jersey — and most of the rest of the United States — has the highest BAC legal limits in all the world. That’s messed up.
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The legal limit should be lowered, period, full stop, end of story. It shouldn’t even be a debate.
People are drunk at 08 and have zero business behind the wheel. The legal limit needs to be pushed down to .05, and punishments should start with a year’s suspension of your driver’s license.
Get an Uber. Call a Lyft. Stay alive. And more importantly, keep everyone else alive.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian. He can be reached at jedelstein@ trentonian.com, facebook. com/jeffreyedelstein and @ jeffedelstein on Twitter.