Attending the No. 4 ranked “party school” in the nation leads to a reasonable assumption that alcohol is consumed on the Syracuse University campus. Coveted title aside, alcohol brings negative consequences to Syracuse – namely, drunk driving.

The current accepted legal limit for blood alcohol concentration while driving in New York state is .08 percent, but this level has been criticized for its effectiveness of keeping drunk drivers off the roads.

A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine calls for a decrease in the legal limit for BAC while driving from .08 to .05 percent. The report expects that a decrease in BAC levels will reduce the 10,000 fatalities related to alcohol-impaired driving each year in the U.S.

The New York State Department of Health provides a closer look at the effects of drunk driving in the state, reporting 17,972 injuries and deaths in crashes with a drunk driver from 2013 to 2015. In Onondaga County alone during this time, there were 591 such injuries and fatalities. Both nationally and in New York state, people ages 21-34 have the highest rates of these deaths.

This higher rate may come down to inexperience. As people reach the legal drinking age, they don’t yet know how many alcoholic beverages impair them, since it depends on a variety of factors like age, weight, gender, metabolism, caffeine intake and serving sizes. People can misjudge their ability to hold alcohol and get behind the wheel without realizing they exceed the legal limit.

Attempting to drink responsibly with the one-drink-an-hour rule is a myth. Alcohol takes longer to leave bodies than to affect them, so the beginning of every hour does not mean the alcohol in your system resets to zero.

Even if people can somehow gauge their .08 percent limit, the National Institutes of Health found that the ability to operate a motor vehicle already declines before the .08 benchmark. Some people struggle to focus on more than one thing at a time with just a .02 percent BAC, making driving safely that much more difficult.

Syracuse University Department of Public Safety Officer Robert Boris has over 20 years of experience with the Syracuse Police Department. Boris specializes in DWI laws, but he doubts the effectiveness of decreasing the legal limit for BAC levels.

“It’s not gonna make a difference. The average person I (arrested) for a DWI was usually a 1.2 or higher,” he said. “So you can lower it to .01 or raise it to a 2.0, but the average is going to be 1.2.”

Boris goes on to explain that someone could have a .02 percent BAC and still face a DWI charge under common law. The arrest all depends on the driver’s impairment, even if their BAC is under the legal limit, since alcohol affects everyone differently.

Boris said he thinks messing with the numbers will not change a thing, but instead he expressed the importance of young people receiving education on the dangers of drunk driving.

Showing young people real-life consequences to give them a comprehensive understanding, before the opportunity for a potentially fatal mistake, will create more responsible adults and a decrease in the 10,000 yearly drunk driving deaths will follow suit.

The repercussions from a DWI follow people forever. The stripped privilege of a license, the cost of legal fees, car repair and insurance, the criminal record that creates a threat to potential job opportunities and the possibility for injury or loss of life is never worth the risk. Decreasing BAC driving levels to .05 percent will not solve the core problem of society’s ignorance to the dangers of drunk driving.

Nobody regrets choosing to not drink and drive, and with Uber, Lyft and taxis available all over Syracuse, people can easily leave the keys at home, hop in a paid ride and get to their No. 4-ranked party safely.

Caroline Maguire is a sophomore television, radio and film and psychology double major. Her column appears biweekly. Contact her at cpmaguir@syr.edu or on twitter at @carolinemags22.

Published on February 7, 2018 at 10:40 pm