Here's my real point. I believe, and I'm not alone, that the 0.08 limit is unnecessarily and arbitrarily low, and has more to do with neo-temperance hysteria th

Here's my real point. I believe, and I'm not alone, that the 0.08 limit is unnecessarily and arbitrarily low, and has more to do with neo-temperance hysteria than sound judgment. There is a central divide in alcohol use and an individual's response to it. Barring young people inexperienced with alcohol (and lacking a fully developed frontal lobe), most people drink a bit, feel tipsy, and then decide that they need to sober up. They're self-aware, responsible, and careful. That's their response to alcohol. But another segment of people have a completely different response to alcohol. They have a couple of drinks, feel a sense of euphoria, and want to drink and drink and drink some more. These people are alcoholics. They may be very high-functioning — able to hold down a job and all — but they respond both physically and psychologically in a fundamentally different way. The first group might get behind the wheel, if they judge that they feel alright, and drive home as carefully as they can. The second group — now drunk — will get behind the wheel and drive recklessly, exceeding the speed limit, blasting the radio, taking turns too fast and so forth. The first group might be at BAC 0.05 or 0.08, or even at 0.10, but taking all due precautions. It's not ideal, but it's a far cry from the second group, now at 0.15 or 0.2 or 0.3 (which takes some practice as you know, since unpracticed drunks would be passed out at this BAC), who are now whipping down the road. The first group occasionally has "too much to drink." The second group is blasted every Friday and Saturday night, and sometimes every happy hour. It's this second group that is causing the lion's share of the tragedies we see on the roadways. The shame of it is that our whole culture has to suffer because of this. A person who is no real threat to his fellows and who may very well be guilty of no other infraction at the time can have his life ruined by over-zealous prosecution. I think we would do well to reconsider the problem and what we're tying to solve, rather than simply getting MAD(D) about such things and patting ourselves on the back for making things "tougher," year after year.