A little different. The Supreme Court decision was really centered around a person’s privacy in their own home and being outside the “gaze” of the government. They don’t want police officers just hanging around people’s homes trolling for evidence without a warrant. Almost as if it was a trespass on property. It was a close decision, 5-4.
No worries. The new limit will only be applied to conservatives! 
I believe public transportation such as airports and train stations are exempt from probable cause search limitations. There is a sign at ever airport/train station notifying you that you are subject to search.
The DUI lobby would have none of this. Just think of all the funding they would lose.
If you read the dog sniffing decision, it is clear that the fact that police officers went on the guy’s PORCH uninvited to do the dog sniffing was what made it illegal. Communities have understandings about who is tacitly invited to come up onto your porch and why. Police are not tacitly invited to come on to your porch to have their dogs sniff for drugs. If police are in a public place with a drug sniffing dog there is no violation.
The drug dogs are in customs typically, where your request to enter into the country is deemed consent to a search for contraband. At the airport otherwise, the bomb sniffing dogs are there for public safety and, again, you’re consenting to search by using the airport facility.
That to me is a believable figure . . . the vast majority of accidents and deaths related to DUI involve drivers well over the legal limits.
If the NTSB is simply recommending this there’s far less to worry about than if Congress passes a bill restricting highway funding for states that don’t comply. I suspect that will be a much harder sell given the strength of more rural states where driving is much more critical and where ratcheting down the level will have a potentially more significant impact.
http://www.ou.edu/oupd/bac.htm
There’s no indication of the alcohol content of the “Common Table Wine”.
There’s no indication of how body fat percentages might affect the results.
EDIT: And there’s no indication as to whether the BAC might still continue to increase at the end of the first hour [can we assume that they’ve computed a statistical average “peak” which would fall at some point during or after the first hour ?!?].
Finally, they seem to think that there isn’t any statistical difference between 180 lbs and 200 lbs [at least after rounding error].
Now don’t quote me on these numbers, but here’s what I thought I saw:
Of course, it’s important to remember that the .08 BAC is the level at which an individual is per se guilty of DUI. An individual can still be found guilty of DUI at levels less than .08, but the prosecution has to prove the driver was not driving safely.
What would be interesting to know is how many DUI arrests are made at levels under .08 BAC, and of those arrests, how many cases are successfully prosecuted. That analysis might give you a better sense of the impact of setting the BAC at something like .05 instead of .08.
Bruce
If I have 4 drinks in an hour I am asleep 5 minutes later…
In Victoria, Australia we have had .05 BAC since December 1966 and everyone is happy with the law.
This is also yet another exercise where so-called experts produce a set of so-called facts, when the experts intended from the outset to create evidence to support a preset conclusion, and there was effectively zero chance that they would have created (much less reported) any facts that were to the contrary of the preset conclusion, or that anyone who had any possibility of arriving at the wrong “facts” would have been funded and employed in the research to begin with.
If you think I’m just paranoid, imagine for a moment that the NTSB had conducted their “research” and concluded that it is safe to raise the limit back up to .1% BAC. Do you think there is 1 chance in a million they would have done that?
And if not, then how reliable are the data that they are presenting as though it is rock-solid objective science? Doesn’t real science and real research have the possibility of arriving at different outcomes than the one the researcher and the sponsor desired at the outset?
This is why I always told my students to ask some questions about any bit of research they encountered. Who conducted it? Who paid for it? Do they have motivation to fabricate facts? Is there any other plausible reason why an outcome occurred besides what the research was claiming? Where the hell is Jimmy Hoffa?
Looks like we all need to gain a bunch of weight if this proposal is adopted! ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
Just to illustrate the disconnect between these safety issues and the laws they inspire, studies are already showing what most people could have figured out right from the start – when you outlaw texting while driving, it simply causes people to text down at their lap rather than up on the steering wheel, and the result is greater danger and increased numbers of accidents and fatalities.
But does anyone expect a reversal of those laws?
A very common threshold throughout the world.
I’m not sure how I feel about changing it in the US. Common sense says drinking and driving is not a good fit but there are many factors.
Put it to the people.
Cuz you’re all stoned on other drugs.
It’s for revenue enhancement. Sorry, but I’m all for nailing them IF they are under the influence and cause a problem, but not if they MIGHT cause a problem.
Chris, you have to believe until it becomes true.
If you own a firearm, then the 0.08 BAC level will remain
I agree with this and each of your prior posts. Not to be too harsh, but when we start to aggressively ticket and take away licenses from that subset of octogenarians who have lost all semblance of response time, and therefore have no business on the road (obviously not politically correct, and therefore unlikely to happen), then I will be more receptive to the .05 logic. But I’ve seen too many of them in the Albertson’s parking lot in Sun City to believe this is happening.