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MADD's Proposal to Redefine Drunk Driving Ignores Real Problem, Says ABI

18 July 1997

MADD's Proposal to Redefine Drunk Driving Ignores Real Problem, Says ABI

    WASHINGTON, July 18 -- American Beverage Institute issued the
following:

    Mothers Against Drunk Driving will announce at a press conference this
morning that legislation to lower the drunk driving arrest threshold will save
lives.  It won't.
    "There is no legitimate research that shows lowering the drunk driving
threshold to .08% BAC (blood alcohol concentration) saves lives," said Rick
Berman, general counsel of the American Beverage Institute (ABI).  "In fact,
MADD's misguided legislation will actually outlaw social drinking, making it
illegal for a 120-pound woman to consume two glasses of wine over a two-hour
period and drive."
    The ABI, a restaurant industry trade association, strongly opposes MADD's
efforts to lower the arrest level for drunk driving because the proposal
targets currently legal drinkers and does nothing to address the real problem
-- alcohol abusers.  Instead, the ABI recommends a program of graduated
penalties that impose the harshest sanctions on the people most responsible
for drunk driving accidents -- the alcohol abusers.
    As recently reported by The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA
Today, high-BAC drivers and repeat offenders are at the core of the drunk
driving problem.  Research by the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that
nearly two-thirds of all alcohol-related fatalities involve BACs of .14% or
higher.  Even MADD's national president, Katherine Prescott, said the drunk
driving problem "may be down to a hard core of alcoholics who do not
respond to public appeals."

SOURCE  American Beverage Institute