The drive to sobriety

We’re not going to begrudge anyone a beer or three at a Super Bowl party — particularly if they’re going home via subway, bus, cab or Uber — but when multiplied by an untold number of drivers, drinking carries a heavy price. Alcohol-related car crashes killed 42 New York City residents in 2021, and intoxication is involved in roughly 30% of close to 300 annual motor vehicle fatalities statewide. None of those people started their day wanting to maim or kill.

So we commend state Sen. John Liu, Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon and others pushing to lower the state’s DWI limit to .05 grams per deciliter of blood, a legislative move that’s won strong support from Mayor Adams and his transportation commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez.

The threshold is currently .08 for drivers of noncommercial vehicles. Those who register between .05 and .07 are just “driving while ability impaired,” a lower charge that triggers a 90-day license suspension. Penalties for DWI proper are much higher: A .18 blood alcohol or higher is aggravated DWI, which comes with a sentence of up to a year, while repeat offenders can get as many as seven years in prison.

In case all those numbers confuse you, let’s put it this way: .05 is fairly drunk and .08 is even more sloshed. Neither person should be behind the wheel of thousands of pounds of metal capable of traveling 100 mph. An 185-pound man hits a BAC of .05 after he downs four drinks on an empty stomach over a two-hour period. That’s not a little.

Lower legal limits work. Six years ago, Utah lowered its limit from .08 to .05 — and then, according to research by the National Highway Safety Administration, proceeded to save lives even as drivers logged more miles.

Make the change, New York. And while you’re at it, update the laws to bar people from driving while high on cannabis. Otherwise, we might wind up trading a drop in one type of impaired driving for a spike in another.