Lower The Threshold
Greg Casey's death in November, following a number of other deaths here attributed to drunken driving in recent years, has heightened the awareness of people all over town of tragic - and unnecessary - loss, even among those who weren't acquainted with the popular and energetic gardener, landscaper, fisherman, sailor, cameraman, storyteller, and beachcomber.
It is generally thought that the police on the South Fork strictly enforce the law against drunken driving and that their many arrests may well save lives, although they are not able to be everywhere at once.
The message of prevention also helps and has been sounded loudly and clearly in the schools and the media. But it isn't always heeded. The number of arrests for drunken driving in Suffolk County has been increasing, and there are continuing reports of fatalities - 49 in Suffolk last year alone.
In the past week, the media have carried word of Federal and state initiatives to toughen the laws against driving while intoxicated by reducing the legal threshold for drunkenness from a blood-alcohol level of .10 percent to .08 percent.
Translated, the new standard would mean a 170-pound man's being deemed drunk after consuming four drinks in an hour on an empty stomach; for a 140-pound woman that would be three drinks. This is hardly an attempt to legislate against responsible social drinking, yet the restaurant and tavern industry is opposed to it.
The self-interest of the opposition is even more apparent when the outcome of the lower threshold is considered in those 15 states that already have adopted it. While a quarter of D.W.I. fatalities nationwide reportedly involve a blood-alcohol level lower than .10 percent, the first five states to reduce the level showed a 16 percent overall decrease in alcohol-related fatal crashes.
The Federal bill carries an additional incentive. States that do not adopt the .08 percent level by 2001 will lose some of their Federal highway construction assistance. New York's Senators Alfonse D'Amato and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, normally political foes, joined forces to get that bill passed in the Senate. Representative Michael P. Forbes, the South Fork's Congressman, and his colleagues in the House will now take it up there.
A Boston University study projected that there would be at least 500 fewer fatal crashes in the United States each year if all states adopt the lower limit. New York is one of the 35 states that still have not. Its Legislature, represented in these parts by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Kenneth LaValle, failed to act last year when Governor George E. Pataki proposed such a measure.
They should approve the lower standard swiftly this year.