Written Testimony on SB 2463 relating to the Use of Intoxicants while Operating a Vehicle before the Hawaii House Transportation Committee

​Good morning, Chair Kila, Vice Chair Miyake, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to testify before you today.

The NTSB is an independent federal agency charged by Congress with investigating aviation, marine, and rail accidents; commercial space launch and re-entry mishaps; highway crashes; and hazardous materials releases in pipelines and elsewhere in transportation. We determine the probable cause and issue safety recommendations to prevent such events from happening again. We also conduct safety research.

The NTSB has no power to regulate or legislate, and we rely on the persuasive power of our comprehensive investigations and research to encourage the recipients of our recommendations to act to improve safety. We appreciate the opportunity to testify on our recommendation to Hawaii to lower its per se impairment threshold from .08 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to .05.[1]

Due to the lack of progress toward reducing the impact of impaired driving, in 2012, we held a forum, titled "Reaching Zero," that kicked off a year-long effort to assess impaired-driving countermeasures. The effort culminated with our 2013 report, Reaching Zero: Actions to Eliminate Alcohol-Impaired Driving, [2] which identified the most effective, scientifically based actions that could save lives from being lost to alcohol-impaired driving. One of these actions was to lower the per se impaired driving limit from .08 to .05 or lower for all drivers. We recommended that all states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico reduce the alcohol impairment per se threshold to .05 or lower. [3]

We view our testimony today as an opportunity to support this committee's important work to save lives. Too many people are dying on our roads every year because of alcohol impairment. These deaths are 100-percent preventable, and fewer people will die when states lower the legal per se BAC limit from .08 to .05. This change has been made elsewhere without adverse economic consequences.

Simply put, .05 saves lives. The remainder of this testimony supports this conclusio​n.

​The Persistent Problem: Impaired-Driving Crashes Still Kill Thousands

Progress in addressing impaired driving has stalled. In fact, over the past several years, the problem has gotten worse. In 2023, there were 12,429 alcohol-impaired driving fatalities in the United States-accounting for 30 percent of all traffic fatalities. [4],[5] Hawaii lost 39 lives to alcohol-impaired driving in 2023, which was 42% of the state's total traffic fatalities - 11 percentage points higher than the national average. That makes Hawaii first in the nation for the proportion of impaired-driving fatalities.

Impaired-driving crashes negatively impact people financially, too. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) last estimated the economic cost of all alcohol-involved crashes in the United States to be $68.9 billion for 2019.[6] So, although the ongoing tragedy of impaired driving can strike anybody, its economic burden does strike everybody.

Lowering the Per Se BAC Limit to .05

From 2006 to 2017,[7] all states had a per se BAC threshold of .08 for noncommercial drivers aged 21 and over. But .08 BAC is not when impairment begins: drivers are impaired at .05 BAC. Individuals with a BAC of .05 experience lowered alertness, reduced coordination, impaired judgment, and difficulty tracking moving objects. [8] Most of us would not want to be in the same vehicle as a driver experiencing those impairments, and neither should we want to share the road with those impaired drivers. These abilities are critical for safe driving and explain why drivers at a BAC of .05 have a 38-percent increased risk of being in a crash compared to a sober driver. There is a reason that it is already illegal for commercial truck and bus drivers to drive at a BAC of .04 or higher.

The science behind .05 BAC limits is also clear, well-documented, and irrefutable. More than 100 countries have established a BAC limit of .05 or lower to reduce alcohol-related crashes, and the benefits of the lowering BAC limits have been documented. A 2017 study estimated that this standard could result in an estimated 11-percent decline in fatal alcohol-related crashes and save at least 1,700 lives annually in the United States. [9] This is not surprising, as similar benefits were realized when BAC limits were reduced from .10 to .08. ​

We can also learn from Utah's example. Utah lowered the state's legal BAC limit for noncommercial drivers from .08 to .05, effective December 30, 2018. In February 2022, NHTSA published a report, Evaluation of Utah's .05 BAC Per Se Law, comparing the state's crash data before and after the law went into effect.[10] The report found crash and fatality rates were reduced in Utah compared to the rest of the country. When vehicle miles traveled are considered, the fatal crash rate reduction from 2016 to 2019 in Utah was 19.8 percent, and the fatality rate reduction was 18.3 percent. In comparison, the rest of the United States showed a 5.6-percent fatal crash rate reduction and 5.9-percent fatality rate reduction during the same time. In addition, the neighboring states of Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada did not show the same levels of improvement in crash and fatality rates as Utah. Further, the study found that there was no impact on alcohol sales, tax revenues, or tourism in Utah. In fact, alcohol sales in Utah have consistently increased year-over-year since 2020.[11]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States experienced a significant increase in traffic fatalities, including impaired-driving fatalities. Utah was not immune to this, which also saw a similar effect. However, as traffic fatalities have leveled out, Utah saw a 30-percent decline in alcohol-impaired driving traffic fatalities in 2023 compared to 2022. There were also significant decreases in the total number of alcohol-related crashes and the alcohol-related fatal crash rate in 2023.[12]

Lowering the BAC limit to .05 causes a general deterrent effect-lowering the limit prevents drinking drivers of all BACs from getting behind the wheel. A 2019 Utah survey found that 22 percent of drinkers reported changing their behavior following the .05 law. The most frequent change was making sure alternate transportation was available when drinking away from home.[13] This is where the power of lowering the BAC limit lies-drivers make better decisions when considering drinking and driving.

​Support for .05

National and international traffic safety and public health organizations, including the American Medical Association; the World Health Organization; the World Medical Association; the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine; the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine; the American Public Health Association; the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety; and Mothers Against Drunk Driving have advocated setting BAC limits at .05 or lower.

Conclusion

Progress toward eliminating alcohol-impaired driving fatalities has stagnated and more can-and should-be done to prevent these tragedies. The evidence is clear: per se BAC limits of .05 or lower can save (and have saved) lives.

The NTSB believes that the only acceptable number of deaths on our roads is zero, and it has been our charge since our founding to determine how to eliminate transportation fatalities. Deaths due to impaired driving are 100-percent preventable, and Hawaii can be a leader in implementing policies that will prevent impaired driving and save lives.

[1]For the remainder of this testimony, we use the common shorthand of .08 and .05, omitting repeated references to units of measure for BAC and breath alcohol concentration (BrAC). Blood alcohol concentration (BAC) is commonly rendered without units, but it stands for the grams of alcohol per tenth of a liter, or deciliter, of blood. Breath alcohol concentration (BrAC) uses grams of alcohol per 210 liters of breath (alcohol is 2,100 times more concentrated in blood than in breath). As a result, .05 g/dL BAC, for example, is considered the equivalent of .05 g/210 liters BrAC.