Utah on Sunday will become the first state to lower the limit for driving under the influence of alcohol from .08 to .05 percent.

Sen. Peter Courtney, D-Salem and president of the Oregon Senate, hopes Oregon becomes the second.

Courtney is gearing up to introduce a bill during the upcoming legislative session -- which starts Jan. 22 -- that would make it illegal for drivers to get behind the wheel with a blood alcohol content of .05 percent or greater.

“Alcohol is a deadly weapon,” Courtney said.

Courtney says there are plenty of arguments to lower the limit:

A .08 percent blood alcohol content is the equivalent of a 160-pound man drinking four beers in an hour or a 140-pound woman drinking three beers in an hour. That’s far more than a responsible person should drink if that person is also going to drive, Courtney says.

A .05 percent blood alcohol content would take the same man about three beers in an hour to reach, and that same woman a little more than 2 beers.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has been urging all 50 states lower their limits to .05 percent for the past five years. That would result an 11 percent decline in fatal crashes, saving nearly 1,800 lives a year, according to estimates.

The risk of being in a fatal crash is at least seven times higher for drivers with blood alcohol contents of .05 percent to .079 percent than for drivers who’ve consumed no alcohol, according to information from the NTSB.

Some other countries have already enacted a .05 percent limit or even lower -- and that includes Australia, virtually all of Europe and Japan.

But Courtney -- the longest serving member of the Oregon Legislature, now in his 34th year -- holds no illusions that his bill will pass. In fact, he expects it to face stiff opposition from the liquor industry.

“It’s going to be a struggle,” Courtney said of his bill, which he expects to be designated as Senate Bill 7. “This is a Mount Everest move. It’s doable, but it isn’t going to be easy. I’m going to fight like hell to make it happen.”

One of those groups is the American Beverage Institute, which represents restaurants and beer, wine and spirits producers. Spokesman Jackson Shedelbower said most fatal crashes are caused by drivers who drink high volumes of alcohol or are have had repeat DUIIs. He thinks any new legislation should focus on those drivers.

Shedelbower points to statistics circulated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that say 70 percent of alcohol-impaired fatalities involved at least one driver with a blood alcohol content of .15 percent or higher.

“That’s three times a .05 percent BAC,” Shedelbower said.

“We think this law criminalizes perfectly responsible behavior,” said Shedelbower.

In 1983, Oregon and Utah became the first states in the nation to lower the drunken driving limit from .10 percent to .08 percent. Over the next few decades, all states followed suit.

Courtney remembers first introducing the idea in 1981, as a freshman representative, while in committee.

“The room fell silent,” Courtney said, describing the shock that a newbie would propose such a startling change. But to Courtney’s surprise, the .08 limit ultimately gained traction and passed into law two years later.

Although Courtney suspects opposition to his bill in 2019, he has some hope, given Oregon’s groundbreaking passage of a lower limit 35 years ago.

Courtney says his bill doesn’t mean people would have to drink less -- they can still enjoy an evening out, but they need to find some other way home, such as a taxi, Uber or Lyft.

The bill would not only enact a .05 percent limit on drivers, but boaters, too. BikePortland.org, which first reported on Courtney’s bill Thursday, noted that bicyclists can be convicted of DUII’s as well.

Also of note, Oregon’s current limit of .08 percent isn’t an absolute figure that applies to all cases. Oregon law allows police to arrest and prosecutors to convict people of DUII with blood alcohol levels below .08 -- if there’s ample evidence that the person was impaired.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

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