Watering down drunk driving

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A Senate bill contains both a positive initiative and a highly negative one: It would reduce the legal limit for a driver's blood-alcohol level to 0.08 percent from 0.10. But it also gets rids of a provision requiring the state to revoke a suspected drunken driver's license immediately.

Currently, South Carolina licenses are immediately revoked for 30 days for drivers whose blood-alcohol level is 0.15. But that provision would be eliminated by the Senate's bill.

The net result would be a drunk-driving law that, on balance, is weaker in its deterrent effect.

As it stands, immediately revoking a license is a huge deterrent to potential drunk drivers. In the 40 states with provisions that immediately revoke licenses of drivers who have a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 or 0.10, alcohol-related traffic fatalities have decreased as much as 9 percent.

The federal government is requiring states to reduce the allowable blood-alcohol level to 0.08 percent. It is threatening to take away $60 million in highway funds from South Carolina if it fails to do that. Already the state has lost $1.8 million in incentives by failing to reduce that level.

But the federal government also is requiring states that revoke licenses of suspected drunken drivers to lower the standard for that to 0.08 percent as well. The Senate's response to that requirement seems to be to get rid of the immediate license revocation law currently on the books.

That does nothing to reduce the number of drunk-driving fatalities on South Carolina roads. On the contrary, it may result in more deaths.

Lawmakers in the House should make sure they correct the Senate's mistake, coupling a lowered drunk-driving standard with automatic license revocation.

Several other measures could quickly make our roads safer from drunk drivers, including hiring more state troopers, improving the maintenance of state roads, enacting a stronger seat belt law and providing more treatment programs for substance abusers. Meanwhile, lawmakers should finally do away with the use of minibottles at bars, which gives South Carolina the strongest mixed drinks in the nation.

The state desperately needs more troopers to monitor our state roads. A strong law enforcement presence often can deter drunk drivers and others who recklessly break the law by speeding and other offenses.

State lawmakers know exactly what they need to do to crack down on drunk driving. There's no excuse for not addressing this tragic problem in South Carolina.