The National Transportation Safety Board’s 2016 Most Wanted List is out! The Most Wanted List represents the NTSB’s advocacy priorities, and is designed to ‘increase awareness of, and support for, the most critical changes needed to reduce transportation accidents and save lives’ around the United States. View the NTSB press conference here: NTSB YouTube Channel. One of the salient issues raised by the NTSB in 2016 is the ending of substance impairment in transportation.
Over the years NTSB investigations have claimed substance impairment has caused or has been a contributing factor in numerous transportation accidents. In light of this, the NTSB is always looking for solutions to correct, as they see it, a national problem. The current legal limit for all states in the union is .08. NTSB claims that is not low enough; they argue that it should be lowered to 0.05— or even lower. Additionally, NTSB supports the notion that states should increase collection, documentation, and reporting of driver BAC test results, both for alcohol and drugs, following crashes.
NTSB claims that although certain countermeasures have been shown to reduce the rate of alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol-related crashes (including stronger impaired driving laws and increased use of high-visibility enforcement, such as sobriety checkpoints), other countermeasures are needed to ensure that people who are caught driving while impaired (DWI) do not do so again. Examples of possible additional countermeasures include, but may not be limited to: (1) requiring ignition interlocks for all alcohol impaired-driving offenders, (2) DUI courts for repeat offenders, which would provide a tailored approach that involve treatment and supervision, and (3) in-vehicle technology, such as the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety – a system that uses touch-based or breath-based systems to detect driver alcohol use). Will NTSB’s Most Wanted List someday become reality? Time will tell, but for now the legal limit for Washington and around the country is .08.
If you, or a loved one, have been arrested and cited for DUI in Washington State you should immediately seek the assistance of a Seattle DUI lawyer. A qualified and respected Seattle DUI attorney, among other things, can quite possibly save a person thousands of dollars in court and insurance fees, extent of loss of privilege to drive and amount of jail time to be served. Washington traffic laws are far too complicated for any ol’ attorney to handle. Be smart … hire a qualified and skilled Seattle DUI attorney when arrested for an alcohol and/or a drug related DUI in Washington State.
