Kudos to the D.C. Council, which recently voted in favor of a resolution by Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, to nix the District's unjust "zero tolerance" policy of allowing police to arrest motorists who register any alcohol at all after stopping them for other offenses.

The Schwartz resolution was inspired by an article in The Washington Post, which found that hundreds of D.C. residents had been arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) with blood alcohol levels below .05, including some at as low as .01.

The larger problem, however, is the fact that since 2000, the federal government has mandated a blanket .08 legal threshold for the entire country. We've now had five years of data to measure the effectiveness of the .08 standard, and the data strongly suggest that not only is the standard too low, but the resources we're expending to enforce it may actually be making our roadways more dangerous.

So I stumbled upon the WaPo article linked above with this totally insane story about this woman who was arrested and had to spend thousands of dollars to keep herself out of going to a 12 week "counseling program" because she had a single glass of wine at dinner. I was heartened to find that DC repealed that law. This commentary provides some interesting information about the national .08 standard and whether or not it actually makes roads safer. Sometimes, authoritarian policies kill. Particularly when you have the police in one of the most dangerous cities in the country focused on hassling people who drank a single glass.

Unnecessary laws of this nature are quite popular with many smaller communities. There's usually enough going in large "dangerous cities" where this is a valid waste of resource that's needed elsewhere. Many of the places that I've lived, which are for the most part, very low crime, exhibit the behavior of a somewhat corrupt police force. The police are constantly creating work for themselves in order to justify their numbers and funding in such communities. It's not uncommon to be pulled over for a malfunctioning license place light (normal) and see 5 additional patrol cars rush to the scene (unnecessary.) Monthly quotas for the amount of tickets written in order for an officer to keep his/her job are common, as are an excessive amount of speed traps. It's up to the federal government to keep this stuff in check.

Forum: Lower DUI Threshold More Dangerous?