A state Senate bill that would have lowered the drunken driving blood alcohol content threshold from 0.08% to 0.05% failed to clear the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee and is dead for the year.
“We’re disappointed,” said Rick Collins, project director for Hawaii Alcohol Policy Alliance, which advocated for the bill. “We were hoping for at least a hearing so that it gave the public the opportunity to share with the lawmakers their perspective.”
Big Island Rep. David Tarnas, chair of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, opted not to hear SB 160 this session due to concerns there wasn’t enough information to answer some key questions posed by members of the House.
“As chair of the committee, I have the responsibility of looking at all of the bills that are being referred, and deciding whether a bill is ready or needs more work,” Tarnas said. “I was really struck with how much skepticism and how many questions I got from members, not just in my committee, but in the House.”
Those questions centered around whether there was definitive evidence that a reduction from 0.08% to 0.05% would make roads significantly safer.
“The data for Hawaii shows that around 2% of fatal accidents involve people that have a blood alcohol content level between 0.05% and 0.08%,” Tarnas said. “But 65% of fatal accidents have people with no alcohol in their system at all, and 30% of fatal accidents have drivers with blood alcohol content levels at 0.08% or above.”
But Collins said there is sufficient evidence showing that lowering the threshold to 0.05% has an impact on accidents across all BAC levels.
“If a new law is passed, then a person knows the level of drinking has to come down,” Collins said. “So, the data shows they end up either not drinking and driving altogether, which is kind of the ultimate goal, or before they get behind the wheel of a car, they’re drinking less because anecdotally they know they need to drink less.”
While countries like Canada, Australia and Japan have a 0.05% BAC limit, Utah is the only state that has enacted that threshold.
Utah’s bill became law in 2018, so only a few years of data exist about its impact.
“It’s difficult to draw conclusions from such a limited data set,” Tarnas said, adding he would conduct more research in the interim, and work alongside House Transportation Committee Chair Rep. Chris Todd of Hilo to dive deeper into the proposal.
“Based on all the information from Utah and other countries that have done this, I’m going to come back next session and respond to some of those questions and see if I have the support,” Tarnas said. “Frankly, I don’t think I had support to be able to move out this bill, and I didn’t want to have a hearing on the bill and have a vote on it unless I could answer all these questions.”
Concerns also came from the state Public Defender’s Office, which provided testimony stating “a reduction of the alcohol impairment level to 0.05% BAC simply casts too wide a net and will result in criminalizing the behavior of normally responsible drinkers without having an impact on reducing alcohol-related fatalities.”
The bill technically is still alive and likely will be revisited in 2024 by the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee.
“The bill is still alive. It’s good for two years, the entire session, so it’s still going to be in the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee when we start the session next year,” Tarnas said. “It’s my intention to do the work over the interim and make the decision next session of whether or not there’s enough data to support moving the bill out.”
Collins plans to continue advocating for the bill by collecting data via wet labs, or DUI labs, where volunteers drink in a controlled setting with the goal of helping police officers detect impairment.
“We’re inviting lawmakers to these wet labs, or DUI labs, so they can participate themselves, or even observe how many drinks it takes to get somebody to 0.05% for their body type and weight, and see the level of impairment that occurs at the various levels, particularly around 0.05%,” Collins said. “There’s a misconception that one drink is going to put you over 0.05%, and that’s just not true.”
Email Grant Phillip at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com