Those are the numbers; the actual metrics of safety are much more subjective. MADD spokesperson Biggers concedes that “tolerance differs vastly” among drivers but cites evidence that “significant impairment starts at .03.” Meanwhile, a NHTSA report in 2010 revealed that a large majority (70 percent) of drivers involved in drunk driving fatalities had a BAC of .15 or higher – clearly, a .04 driver is exponentially more “safe” than one who blows a .15 (which constitutes an “extreme DUI” in Arizona).
Beyond the safety issue is the civil liberty debate – the one that asks hard, insuperable questions like “How many drinks is one life worth?” and “Why set a DUI limit at all if a cop can arrest you for one beer?” According to Dr. Barbara McCrady, director of the Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Addictions at the University of New Mexico, the issue of drinking and driving is particularly troublesome for Americans because it presents dual contradictions to our self-identified values of life and liberty. “We lean toward social protection... when it’s something that so dramatically affects other people,” McCrady says, noting that America’s .08 limit is actually higher than that of most developed nations. “When it comes to drinking heavily but not hurting other people, we lean toward individual liberty. If a family wants to commit someone who’s harming himself – a chronic alcoholic, for instance – they can’t really do that.”
Where current DUI laws are concerned, McCrady says “we don’t have a bad balance [of punishment and leniency] right now” but remains undecided on the wisdom of hitting first-time offenders with hard punitive actions like prison time and interlock devices. “For first-time offenders with interlock, the device has a positive effect on recidivism rates during the first year [after the device is removed],” she says. “But after two years, the rates catch up.”
Defense attorney Squires is less equivocal; he thinks the laws in Arizona are too punitive for first-time offenders, and claims that he’s represented “over 1,000” out-of-state ASU students who packed up and took their tuition dollars out of Arizona after bumping up against the state’s harsh laws. Squires would like to see Arizona adopt the kind of “diversionary” law practiced in Utah and Colorado: no ignition interlock and reduced fines for first-time offenders who blow under .12. “Most people get freaked out by the first (arrest) and keep their noses clean,” he says. “The second one indicates that you probably have an alcohol issue.”
He’d also like to see traffic laws enforced equally at all times during the day: “It’s frankly un-American to do these blanket sweeps.”
Bar and restaurant owners – who stand to lose the most financially from scared-sober drinkers – are surprisingly ambivalent about Arizona’s tensile DUI laws. “It’s made a huge impact. You don’t have the late-night crowd that you used to, that’s for sure,” says Richardson Browne, owner of Dick’s Hideaway and the Rokerij in Phoenix. A waiter and bartender in the days of the bygone .15 legal limit, Browne waxes nostalgic about “martini-lunch businessmen” who would knock down so many drinks in one sitting, he and his coworkers would water down their cocktails so the buzzed businessmen wouldn’t get fired. Though he’s lost some business, Browne calls the drinking-and-driving situation in Phoenix “almost reasonable now,” lauding the efforts of activists to curb genuine drunk driving, which he says helps take the onus off his bartenders to cut heavy drinkers off.
He also says that his regulars have adapted, using taxis and designated drivers more frequently. “Come Saturday or Sunday morning, there are five or six cars in my lot, from people who found rides the night before,” he says. “You never used to see that.”
Following a decade of aggressive public information campaigns and the kind of word-of-mouth that only widespread DUI arrests can engender, it seems unlikely that any would-be drunk driver could take the wheel in Arizona without being cognizant of the risks, both mortal and legal. But if a week in Tent City doesn’t drive the point home, what about one’s livelihood? According to defense attorney Gaxiola, a DUI conviction – which stays on a driver’s record for seven years – doesn’t directly affect your ability to get credit, because “that’s based on your ability to pay and credit patterns and debt-to-income ratio.” But, as a matter of public record, DUIs will find their way onto “private data bases used by rental agencies and prospective employers.”
“So a DUI could very well impact your employability,” says Gaxiola, who, like his colleague Squires, takes a cab or finds a designated driver whenever he imbibes. “So indirectly it could affect your credit score – by taking away your ability to pay your bills.”
Follow the Money: Where First-Time-Offense DUI Dollars Go
• Base fine (kept by the jurisdiction): $250
• Flat state surcharge (law enforcement equipment; gang and immigration enforcement): $13
• Probation assessment: $20
• Public safety equipment fee (vehicles, protective armor, electronic stun devices and other safety equipment; also placed in a general state fund): $500
• Prison construction assessment (used to pay for any costs related to prison overcrowding and department support and maintenance): $500
• State of Arizona surcharge (required for all civil traffic and criminal fine payments; goes to Clean Elections Fund, DNA Fund, others): $210
TOTAL - $1493