The opposing team, which fields at least 17 paid lobbyists for the liquor and hospitality industries, is buttressed by lawyers, many of whom represent clients before the state traffic court. And they're prepared to unleash a blizzard of data to persuade lawmakers to leave the drunken driving laws alone. The test is so accurate that 48 states consider BACs by themselves to be grounds for a drunken-driving conviction. Scientists know a lot about what happens at different BAC levels, and say many drivers are drunk enough to be dangerous long before they get to .10. Governments around the world are lowering legal BAC limits.
Opponents fight each effort fiercely.
We are absolutely opposed and we will marshal all the forces we can from the hospitality industry to defeat that bill. He says a .08 standard unfairly targets social drinkers, not the heavier drinkers he says are responsible for more carnage on the highways. National lobbyist John Doyle, of the American Beverage Institute in Washington, is even more vehement. Nonsense, says David Russell, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. They say we're going to make criminals out of the social drinkers.