From .08 to .05: Utah’s Lower B.A.C. Limit
This March, the Utah Legislature passed and the Governor signed a bill lowering the legal B.A.C. level from .08 to .05. This bill has received a lot of press coverage because Utah is now the first state to have a legal B.A.C. below .08.
There are many reasons why a lower B.A.C. makes sense from a safety standpoint as there have been a number of studies showing that a person can be impaired at a .05 level. Not to mention the fact that much of the world has already adopted a .05 limit; some countries have even lower limits.
The major problem with Utah’s new law, from a criminal law perspective, is the fact that it makes no distinction between a DUI received for surpassing the .05 limit and a DUI received for surpassing the former .08 limit—a violation of the new lower limit is still a felony. The majority of the other countries who have adopted a lower standard do make a distinction, making it a misdemeanor to violate the .05 limit, but a felony to violate the .08 limit. We can only hope that this problem with the law will be fixed during Utah’s next legislative session.
But what does this new law mean from a practical standpoint? Possibly not very much. The police still have to have a reason to pull someone over (unless they happen to have a random sobriety checkpoint set up, but that’s beyond the scope of this post). So, if you go out to dinner and have a couple drinks, enough to put you above the .05 limit, but you are following traffic laws and not driving erratically on your way home, the police should have no reason to pull you over and you may never get caught violating the new law.
On the other hand, if you do happen to get in an accident or you get pulled over, not because you were driving erratically, but because you were speeding, for example, and the officer smells alcohol, then you could potentially be facing a felony if you blow above .05 even if you don’t feel like you are impaired in any way.
So, while it may be unlikely that you will actually be discovered to have been driving above the .05 limit, the law should make you think twice about how much alcohol you’ve had to drink before getting behind the wheel of a car. This is particularly important if you have a tendency to speed or violate other traffic laws that could get you stopped even if you aren’t driving erratically.
If you have been charged with a DUI, or any other crime, contact an experienced Utah defense attorney at Howard, Lewis & Petersen to see how we might be able to assist in your case.
