US wants tougher drunk driving rule

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US wants tougher drunk driving rule
May 15th, 2013 in Health /
The US government wants states to crack down more on people driving
under the influence of alcohol by lowering the permitted blood-alcohol
limit.
It is now at 0.8 gram of alcohol per liter of blood. The National
Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday it should come down to 0.5.
That would put the US in line with most other countries in the world.
The NTSB said research has found that with a level of 0.5 most drivers
experience a decline in both cognitive and visual functions,
significantly increasing the risk of a serious crash.
More than 100 countries in six continents limit the blood-alcohol
content level to 0.5, the board said. It wants the 50 American states
to follow their example.
"Most Americans think that we've solved the problem of impaired
driving, but in fact, it's still a national epidemic," NTSB Chairman
Deborah A.P. Hersman said.
"Each year in the United States, nearly 10,000 people are killed in
crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers and more than 173,000 are
injured," the NTSB said in a statement.
It added: "Since the mid-1990s, even as total highway fatalities have
fallen, the proportion of deaths from accidents involving an alcohol-
impaired driver has remained constant at around 30 percent. In the
last 30 years, nearly 440,000 people have died in alcohol related
crashes."

© 2013 AFP

"US wants tougher drunk driving rule." May 15th, 2013.

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