Editorial: Nevada should pass tougher DUI limit

Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2003 | 8:59 a.m.

In 2000 Congress created a national drunken-driving standard. The reasonable legislation required that all states adopt a 0.08 percent blood-alcohol threshold to determine the legal level for drunken driving. Under the phased-in law, any state that doesn't have the new limit in place by this October will have its federal highway grants cut by 2 percent. It only gets worse for states that continue to refuse to comply: The cut in funds increases to 4 percent by 2004, 6 percent by 2006 and 8 percent by 2007.

Nevada was one of 31 states that still had its legal blood-alcohol limit at 0.10 when Congress passed the stricter requirement. And despite the gaming industry's withdrawal of its previous objections to toughening the standard, the 2001 Legislature inexplicably failed to pass the new standard advocated by Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, a limit that could help lower the number of drinking-related fatalities. In a story last week about the pending deadline, USA Today reported that federal statistics show alcohol was involved in crashes that killed 17,448 people in 2001, an amount that accounted for 41 percent of all traffic deaths that year.

The 2003 Legislature should promptly pass the tougher blood-alcohol requirement. It's a sad commentary that it probably will take the possible loss of federal funding in the midst of a budget crisis -- not the prospect of saving lives -- that will get legislators to finally act.