NOW IS THE TIME FOR .08 By SECRETARY OF STATE GEORGE H. RYAN

With the General Assembly re-convening this month, it is a good time to renew our efforts for .08. The Legislature is moving up its deadlines for bills, and committee hearings may be held as early as the end of the month. So .08 is now a high priority with me, and time is getting short.

Under a Constitutional Amendment approved by Illinois voters in the November General Election, any bill passed after May 31, 1995, cannot take effect until June 1, 1996, unless the bill passed the Legislature by a three-fifths vote.

Illinois stands to lose more than $4 million in federal highway safety funds if a .08 law is not in effect by Sept. 30, 1996.

Municipal officials played a key role in our successful "Use it & Lose It" campaign last year, and we are looking forward to another cooperative effort with .08.

Opponents say the difference between .10 and .08 is negligible and that the proposal would infringe on social drinking. However, consider these facts:
• A person weighing 160 pounds would have to consume four drinks in one hour to reach a BAC of .08. (It would take five drinks in one hour to reach the current illegal BAC of .10.) A person weighing 200 pounds would have to consume five drinks in one hour to reach a BAC of .08. (It would take slighly more than six drinks for this person to reach .10 BAC.).
• One drink equals a 12-ounce beer, a five-ounce glass of wine or a cocktail containing one ounce of 86 proof liquor. They all have an equivalent amount of alcohol.
• Reliable studies show that essential driving skills are impaired at .08 BAC for all people. At .08, drivers take too long to decide and act, motor skills (such as braking) are impaired, and reaction time is increased significantly.
• At .08, a person is three times more likely to be involved in a car crash than a sober driver and 11 times more likely to be involved in a fatal single vehicle crash.

Police officers will still need "probable cause" to stop a vehicle and ask the driver to submit to a breath test. So the number of DUI arrests probably would not increase with the passage of a .08 law, but the number of offenders convicted would.

• By a two-to-one margin, registered Illinois voters support lowering the BAC from .10 to .08, according to a poll commissioned by the Kemper National Insurance Companies. The poll found that:
• A majority of 61 percent favor lowering the BAC to .08, while only 32 percent oppose the change. Majorities of voters in all parts of the state and within all age groups favor the proposition.
• A vast majority — 95 percent — strongly approve of the steps the General Assembly has taken in recent years to reduce the number of drunk drivers. Only two percent disapprove of these actions.

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• Fifty-six percent said a motorist who had three drinks — or even less — in an hour should be considered under the influence.

Illinois is at the forefront nationally in cracking down on drunk drivers. To maintain this position, we must join the 11 other states (California, Florida, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Vermont) that have lowered the illegal DUI limit to .08.

Illinois currently receives $2.2 million annually in federal incentive grants. But those funds will not be available if the state does not have a .08 BAC law in force by Sept. 30, 1996.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, traffic crashes are the greatest single cause of death for persons between the ages of 6 and 32, and nearly half of those crashes are alcohol related. At current rates, two of every five persons in this country will be affected by an alcohol-related crash during their lifetimes.

In 1993, 17,461 deaths, or 43.5 percent of the 40,115 traffic deaths nationally were alcohol related. That is one alcohol-related traffic death every 30 minutes.

Therefore, once again in 1995, I am asking the General Assembly to pass .08 legislation. A level of .08 BAC is indeed drunk and impaired, and people at that level have no business being on the road. This is the message I am taking to the legislature.

The measure is endorsed by the American Medical Association, National Safety Council, National Commission Against Drunk Driving, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Students Against Driving Drunk, Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and others. •

January 1995 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 23