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In all reality, what do you think would happen if we raised the legal limit to either .10 or .12? I'm convinced that we would see a very limited change in the number of accidents and deaths, but a huge change in the number of arrests.
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People get arrested all the time for driving somewhere between .02 and .08. It's not always "DUI" but it happens very frequently, and a cop's testimony in court that you failed sobriety tests is basically a slam dunk for the prosecution in the very small fraction of these cases that ever make it to trial.
But do you really think letting more drunk drivers go free is worth an increased number of accidents and fatalities? It's obvious from the responses in this thread and from the actions of people we all know that drunk driving is usually only viewed as a strict "no-no" by people who have already gotten caught once, and sometimes not even by those people. Raising the legal BAC would certainly have the effect of making people feel even more invulnerable getting into a car after several drinks, and that is just not something we need in this country, where we already "have one of the worst DUI driving accident rates in the developed world while having lower to mid-range rates of alcohol consumption."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_d...United_States)
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Fine,you're right, we dont need more drunk drivers on the roads. Why dont we just get to the root of the problem and bring back prohibition? That way we can eliminate drunk driving, liver disease, along with all the crimes (ie assaults shootings,stabbings,vandalism,etc) that occur under the effects of alcohol. After all, it would be for our protection would it not?
There are other things governments can do, aside from simply making the laws more draconian, that can reduce alcohol-related accidents and deaths. Like making mass-transit (cabs,etc) easily accessible and cheap. I already linked a politics thread about that, I guess its safe to assume nobody read it.