Good afternoon, Chair and members of the Committee. My name is Tom Chapman. I have the honor of serving as the 46th Member of the National Transportation Safety Board.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of Senate Bill 160, which would lower the per se Blood Alcohol Concentration limit from .08 to .05. My comments today supplement our written testimony which was previously submitted.
Since 2013, the NTSB has recommended that all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico establish a per se BAC limit of .05 or lower. In 2018, Utah became the first state to do so and subsequently saw reductions in both its fatal crash and fatality rates relative to the rest of the United States. Passage of SB 160 would make Hawaii the second state to embrace a change that will save lives and cut the number of senseless and completely avoidable crashes.
In 2020, over 11,000 people were killed in crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers in the U.S. That represents almost one-third of all traffic deaths, a proportion that has remained unchanged for 25 years.
Various countermeasures have been tried, and some have made a significant difference. Still, the number of crashes and deaths remains stubbornly high. In Hawaii alone, alcohol-impaired driving crashes killed 368 people between 2011-2020.
More needs to be done. And research suggests that lowering the legal BAC limit to .05 will reduce fatal alcohol-related crashes by an estimated 11 percent. Utah saw reductions in crash rates and alcohol involvement in crashes while there was no negative impact on alcohol sales, tourism, tax revenues, and DUI arrests.
A .05 BAC law works in part as a general deterrent. It helps modify the behavior of all drivers by encouraging them to separate drinking from driving. After the Utah lower BAC law went into effect, an evaluation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that more than one in five drinkers reported that they made changes – such as making sure alternative transportation was available when drinking away from home.
Utah’s experience is a real success story, one we hope to see repeated in Hawaii.
I’ll close by saying that because we know it works, we at the NTSB strongly support legislation that will lower the legal BAC per se limit to .05. Addressing impaired driving on America’s roads requires bold leadership. We applaud Hawaii lawmakers for considering this key step.
