By L.A. Williams
Christian Action League
February 2, 2024
Washington may soon become the second U.S. state to lower its legal blood alcohol level for driving from .08 to .05. The Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, says North Carolina should take note and follow suit.
Safety-conscious lawmakers in both states are motivated by what happened in Utah, where fatal crashes decreased by almost 20 percent, serious injury crashes by about 11 percent, and all crashes by nearly 10 percent the year after its .05 BAC law took effect.
“.05 will save lives,” Shelly Baldwin, director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission, told her state’s lawmakers. “It does so mostly because people will change their behavior.”
Last year, Rep. Mike Clampitt (R-Swain) introduced a bill to lower North Carolina’s BAC to .05. Despite support from national public health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Transportation Safety Board and backing from the Christian Action League among other Tar Heel organizations, the bill did not get a hearing.
In Washington, concerned lawmakers in both chambers see the move to .05 as a way to combat the rising death toll on the state’s highways. The Washington Traffic Safety Commission recorded 674 traffic fatalities in 2021, 345 involving alcohol. The number increased to 740 with 389 alcohol related in 2022; and estimates for last year show fatalities topping 800, with about 50 percent linked to impaired driving.
Although shocking, the numbers don’t surprise Creech, given Washington voters’ 2011 decision on Initiative 1183.
“Initiative 1183 privatized the sale and distribution of liquor in the state and allowed for the sale of spirits in retail stores other than state-run liquor stores. Prior to this initiative, the Washington State Liquor Control Board controlled the sale and distribution of liquor, and the state-operated liquor ABC stores,” he explains.
There were roughly 328 state-run liquor stores when Washington was a control state. After privatization in 2012, the number of alcohol outlets skyrocketed.
“Thousands of licensed liquor retailers, including grocery stores, convenience stores, and other retail outlets, were authorized to sell spirits in Washington following privatization,” Creech says. “The latest statistics are proof that with greater accessibility there are greater problems, more specifically, drunk driving crashes and fatalities.”
A Washington Traffic Safety Commission report presented in December summed it up this way: “Since 2012, poly-drug driving (driving under the influence of two or more substances) has been increasing and is currently the most common type of driver impairment involved in fatal crashes. The most common substance involved in impaired driving continues to be alcohol, whether alone or in combination with other drugs.”
Creech said North Carolina’s choices are clear, given the outcomes in Utah and Washington, evidence that should carry more weight with lawmakers than the propaganda they’re hearing from the alcohol industry. He lamented that rather than moving Clampitt’s bill forward, they seemed more interested in passing industry-driven measures that significantly lifted restrictions designed to protect public health and safety. In fact, in the last two years, the N.C. General Assembly has passed two omnibus alcohol bills including numerous changes to state ABC policies. While they were all supposedly aimed at modernization, Creech says the true focus was on increasing sales and access at the expense of health and safety.
“If lawmakers insist on passing such bills, then something must be done to counteract the inevitable result of an increase in alcohol-related problems,” he says, pointing to the fact that excessive alcohol use, the state’s third leading preventable cause of death, killed more than 6,300 people in 2021.
Last year, another omnibus alcohol measure — this one 39 pages long and including more than 30 proposed changes — was introduced.
“The bill was such an overhaul of alcohol policy in the state that it took more than 45 minutes for its introduction before the North Carolina ABC Committee. It’s impossible for a lobbyist concerned about how such a gargantuan initiative would negatively impact public health to effectively address it,” Creech says. “However, some of the bill’s more egregious proposals aimed to open ABC stores on Sundays and holidays, repeal the ban on happy hours and at bars, and allow for the sale of to-go mixed beverages.”
Although the bill did not pass before the session ended, he expects it to return in the spring session, and he expects alcohol industry lobbyists to fight any proposed changes to the state’s BAC level for impaired driving despite polls consistently showing public support for stricter, harm-reducing alcohol policies.
“The alcohol industry typically opposes measures that work to reduce the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits for drivers, implementing stricter penalties for drunk driving, or restricting the hours of sale, as they fear these could potentially impact alcohol sales and profitability,” Creech says. “So, even though North Carolina would greatly benefit by lowering the blood alcohol level for drunk driving, and even though lawmakers may agree with its premise, it will still be a hard sale because of the lobbying power of the alcohol industry.”
Again, he points to Utah’s outcomes as proof that lowering BAC limits would improve safety without negatively impacting sales.
“Alcohol sales in Utah from 2012 through 2018 increased and continued the trend through Fiscal Year 2020 after the law was effective. Similar patterns were observed for sales tax revenues from restaurant, rental car, hotel, and resort sales, as well as air travel to Utah and visitors to State and National parks,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in a 2022 study. “While the concerns about the impact of the law change on the state’s economy were certainly understandable, the data reviewed for this study indicate none of the potential negative effects of concern came to fruition.”
Creech says that despite the hype and economic fear-mongering from the alcohol industry, the issue is truly quite simple: “Alcohol impairment remains a leading cause of accidents and injuries, including motor vehicle accidents. Stricter alcohol policies can help reduce the number of these incidents, making communities safer for everyone.”
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