US to implement tough laws to stop drunken driving

Washington: The US government wants to crack down more on people driving under the influence of alcohol by lowering the permitted blood-alcohol limit.

More than 100 countries in six continents limit the blood-alcohol content level to 0.5, the board said. It wants the 50 American states to follow their example.

“Most Americans think that we’ve solved the problem of impaired driving, but in fact, it’s still a national epidemic,” NTSB Chairman Deborah A P Hersman said.

“Each year in the United States, nearly 10,000 people are killed in crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers and more than 173,000 are injured,” the NTSB said in a statement.

It added: “Since the mid-1990s, even as total highway fatalities have fallen, the proportion of deaths from accidents involving an alcohol-impaired driver has remained constant at around 30 percent. In the last 30 years, nearly 440,000 people have died in alcohol related crashes.”