Nevada’s stricter DUI law takes effect today

By Ed Koch

Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2003 | 11:22 a.m.

When STOP DUI Executive Director Sandy Heverly began her quest to lower the legal blood-alcohol level in Nevada 12 years ago, less than a half-dozen states had limits below 0.10.

Just a half-dozen states have legal limits above 0.08, and when the clock struck 12:01 a.m. today, Nevada no longer was among those 0.10 holdouts.

In a state where booze flows freely at casinos -- and otherwise plays a major role in not only the image of the city but also in the success of its booming restaurant, tavern and tourist industries -- Heverly's efforts to make Nevada the 40th state to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit to 0.08 was no easy task.

"We've come a long way to earn this victory," Heverly said Monday. "But it is a bittersweet victory when you think about all of the people who lost lives that could have been saved if this law were passed in 1991."

But today "is a new day for Nevada to save lives," she said.

The state's tougher drunken driving law was passed by the 2003 Legislature. While many laws signed by the governor went into effect on July 1 and Oct. 1, the lower blood-alcohol level law coincides with a federal deadline.

Nevada faced pressure from the federal government to tighten its DUI law by Sept. 30 or lose 2 percent of its road construction money. That would have meant a loss of $2.8 million this fiscal year. Also, the penalty would have been raised every year so that by 2007 it would have cost the state $11.4 million.

That threat was a big reason why Stop DUI's seventh time before the Nevada Legislature -- via Assembly Bill 7 -- was lucky No. 7.

"It is fair to say in some of the earlier sessions the special interests were out in force, but not so much the last couple of sessions," said Assemblyman Mark Manendo, D-Las Vegas, author of the failed DUI lower limit bills in 1997, 1999 and 2001 and the successful bill this year.

"They (potential opponents) saw that change was coming. In the last two sessions, we had the support of gaming, which we appreciated."

Manendo, who has friends who were seriously injured by drunken drivers, said, "It's not a case of tourists driving here and killing locals -- it has been for the most part Nevadans getting drunk and and driving and killing tourists and other Nevadans. Many tourists who come here use cabs and buses. This (drunken driving) is our problem that we needed to address."

Because most of the rest of the nation already is at 0.08, tourism officials do not expect the lowering of the limit as having a negative impact on the local tourist-based economy.

"For the California tourists who drive here, 0.08 is burned into their psyche," said Erika Yowell, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

"So many other people who come here from other states already are accustomed to the lower limit. Because of that, I really don't think there will be an impact on them."

Nevada this year joins North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Louisiana and South Carolina in lowering the legal limit from 0.10 to 0.08. The only states remaining at 0.10 are Colorado, Minnesota, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

Las Vegas lawyer James Watkins said those six states were right to keep the higher limit.

Watkins, who primarily handles DUI cases, said the lower limit makes criminals out of responsible drinkers who pose no danger on the road. He testified against the law during the last legislative session, saying officials were "going overboard" by lowering the limit.

The new law does not distinguish between a driver's blood-alcohol level and level of impairment, he pointed out. People who support the new law have long argued that a 0.08 blood-alcohol level equals impairment, but Watkins called that argument "bogus."

He said he suspects his office will be flooded with drivers who were arrested because their blood-alcohol levels were above 0.08, even though they were not impaired.

"The law has nothing to do with impairment and it should," he said. "We're now going to be required to arrest unimpaired drivers for DUI. We're going to be going after innocent people."

Sheriff Bill Young said the law will mean "more people will be going to jail (for DUI), at least initially."

Young said he is "urging everyone to reduce their amounts of social drinking because under the new rules, officers are likely to be conducting field sobriety tests more often when they pull people over or when they respond to traffic accidents."

On Monday, Stop DUI conducted a news conference to promote the new law at, of all places, a bar. The irony is that barkeepers and others long opposed the lower limit saying that there is little scientific evidence that lowering the limit will save lives but that it definitely will reduce bar revenues.

"It is a small sacrifice to make things safer for everyone," said Dee Ann DeForest, spokeswoman for Bahama Breeze on Hughes Center Drive, site of Monday's news conference.

DeForest, noting she had a friend who was killed by a drunken driver, said Darden Restaurants, parent company of Bahama Breeze, has for several years had anti-drunkenness policies that include limiting drinks served as well as offering free rides home for inebriated patrons.

Heverly and Manendo said the new law is not an issue of temperance, but rather an issue of responsibility. They produced charts that showed it takes an awful lot of booze to get someone above 0.08, let alone 0.10.

"A couple can go out to dinner and order a bottle of wine and consume the entire bottle during the meal and not come close to the new legal limit," Manendo said. "The female perhaps will reach the half-way mark."

Blood-alcohol levels are affected by both consumption and weight of the drinker. Because males tend to be larger than females, they can typically consume more liquor system before getting legally drunk.

For example, a 165-pound man can drink either four 12-ounce beers, four five-ounce glasses of wine or four one-and-a-half-ounce shots of hard liquor in an hour and record a 0.07 level, Heverly said. A 120-pound female can drink about three and a half of those same beverages in that same time period and remain under the new limit, she said.

Heverly warns, however, that it takes the body about an hour and a half to rid itself of the alcohol from one drink.

Paul Snodgrass of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who testified before the Nevada Legislature in support of lowering the legal limit, said California has seen a 12 percent reduction in DUI-related deaths since the early 1990s while nationally the average drop is about 8 percent.

While it remains unknown whether the new law will save as many lives in Nevada, local police and prosecutors say they welcome the opportunity to become busier prosecuting those who drive drunk.

Police will be better able "to fight this insidious crime that occurs in Las Vegas," Capt. Rick Bilyeu of the Metro Police Transportation Safety Bureau said, noting that in Metro's jurisdiction 128 people died in traffic accidents last year, one-third in DUI accidents.

Bilyeu said to date this year 85 people have died in traffic accidents, with more than one third being DUIs. He noted through the first six months of this year 1,104 people have been charged with Driving Under the Influence.

At DUI checkpoints over the Labor Day weekend, police, including Bilyeu, said they were surprised to find that an additional 47 drivers would have been arrested and the new alcohol limit of 0.08 been in effect.

At those two checkpoints, police tested 86 drivers for drunken driving and arrested 21. They found, however, that 47 others were found to have a blood-alcohol content in the 0.08 to 0.099 range.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker, who prosecutes high-profile felony DUIs, said the old law was "ridiculous" noting that when reaching 0.10 a person is "medically anesthesized."

His office prosecutes about 4,500 misdemeanor DUIs a year and more than 1,200 felony DUIs and other related felony offenses each year.

The Nevada Office of Traffic Safety said 381 highway deaths were recorded in 2002 with 213 of them in Clark County. Statewide, 138 of those deaths were alcohol-related The alcohol-related deaths on state highways totaled 138 last year with 83 of those in Clark County.

John Moulden, president of the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, said each year DUI offenses cost Nevadans $500 million including about $22 million in additional insurance premiums.

He said the new law could eventually save motorists 18 percent in insurance costs.

"We expect all 50 states soon (will reduce the limit to 0.08)," Moulden said. "It is a reasonable limit."

For the families of victims, such as Jerry Vesely and Elizabeth Mutuc, they hope the lower limit will save other families from the heartaches they've endured.

"We need to get tough and stay tough on offenders," said Vesely, who now lives in Utah but was a Las Vegas resident when his 11-year-old daughter Cody was killed by a drunken driver in February 1997.

"What price do you put on a human life?" he asked.

Elizabeth Mutuc, whose 22-year-old daughter Danielliz Mutuc, was killed by a convicted drunken driver last November, is supportive of the new limit but is skeptical of whether drunken drivers will get the message.

"I hope by lowering the limit it will educate people," she said. "I believe it will help, but how much, I don't know."