Tell your senator to OPPOSE lowering the BAC for a DUI to 0.05%

The Washington State Senate is considering LOWERING the legal Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit from 0.08% to 0.05% for driving under the influence (DUI) arrests with Senate Bill 5002.

The problem? There are no physical signs of intoxication at 0.05%, which makes this limit near impossible for hospitality establishments to determine and for law enforcement to enforce.

This means that hospitality establishments will have no choice but to impose new and arbitrary limits on the beverages they serve guests like you. It also means all drivers are automatically assumed impaired at 0.05%, even if they aren’t – raising the question of what potentially unjust methods will law enforcement use to pull someone over for suspicion of impairment.

This will no doubt increase the number of DUI arrests, without clear data that it will keep our roads safer. In fact, data shows that it is repeat offenders who are the real danger on our roadways. But – because toxicology labs are currently unable to meet the demand in processing current DUI evidence at 0.08%, resulting in years’ long backlogs – they are not being held accountable for their dangerous decisions. Lowering the threshold by 40% will only increase the backlog, resulting in even fewer repeat drunk drivers being held accountable.

The better solution for making our roadways safer is to increase penalties for repeat DUI offenders, NOT to create more first-time offenders that may not even be intoxicated at 0.05%.

Please take one minute to fill out your name in the letter below and send it to your senator so they know how important this issue is to you!