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by Ted Mooney <mooney@finishing.com>
May 25, 1998
I was at a Memorial Day picnic yesterday, but the party
conversations were strangely parallel to the ones that go on in our
industry. To wit, one topic of conversation was this:
Our state is considering changing its DUI/DWI standards from a
blood alcohol level of 0.10 percent to 0.08 percent, as many other
states have recently done. A legislator was quoted from the
newspaper: "A 170-pound man would have to drink more than four
12-ounce bottles of beer on an empty stomach in under an hour to
reach this .08 level".
Everybody who was in on the conversation was in total agreement
that such a person has no business on the road and ought to be
charged with drunken driving. But no one was in favor of reducing the
level from .10 to .08! How can that be? Simple: nobody trusted the
legislator's numbers, and everyone feared that if the levels were
reduced, some circumstance might develop, like their child having to
be driven to the doctor after they had had a glass and a half of wine
with dinner, that might cause them to be charged with drunken driving
Whether it be general-interest things like DUI/DWI levels, or
industry-specific things like nickel and chromium levels, we have to
stop lying to each other. Junk-science, urban legend, sham
'calculations' have to go.
It starts by realizing that seeking the truth is a more worthy
goal than trying to advance an ideological political position.
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