Two Senate bills — Senate Bill 365 and SB 160 — have been introduced in this session to address the rising toll of lives lost from impaired driving. Both bills propose lowering the permissible blood alcohol concentration (BAC) level to 0.05. Advocates for better alcohol policy and safer roads are encouraged by the fact that SB 365 just passed out of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts, unanimously and is now headed to the Judiciary Committee.

The urgency of the bill and the interest it is attracting both nationally and locally are reflected in the diverse voices urging action sooner rather than later. It is worth noting that the world’s largest brewer, Anheuser-Busch InBev, supports the 0.05 BAC. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), represented by Leah Walton, was among those who offered testimony urging a lowering of BAC to 0.05.

Ed Sniffen from the state Department of Transportation, Torey Keltner from the Hawaii Police Department, Stason Tanaka from the Honolulu Police Department, Rick Collins from the Hawaii Alcohol Policy Alliance, Cynthia Okazaki, Aubrey Ahana from the Maui Nui Youth Coalition, and Arkie Koehl from MADD Hawaii were among the local voices testifying in support of the bill.

The many different organizations and members of the public speaking out in support of lowering BAC is consistent with the polling done in December 2022 that shows that the majority of Hawaii voters want better alcohol policy.

One hopes lawmakers do, too. In a speech focused on Hawaii’s children, Senate President Ron Kouchi said, “I’m trying to create the Hawaii our children choose to come back to.”

Advocates hope that includes a willingness to address the preventable deaths of too many young lives in crashes caused by alcohol-impairment.

One of us, Theresa Paulette, knows the inexpressible pain of losing a child in a crash caused by a driver cited six times for impaired driving. The other, Camlyn Pola, still carries the trauma of being the survivor of a crash arising from the alcohol impairment of the driver of the car she was in after attending a high school beach party. That crash took the lives of three of her high school classmates who were with her — and an innocent motorist who died trying unsuccessfully to avoid a collision.

We never stop mourning the lives of loved ones taken from us. We cannot bring them back but we can honor their memory by taking steps — like lowering the BAC level — to ensure that others do not suffer the kind of loss we have known.

Utah, the only state thus far to lower its BAC level to 0.05, saw a 20% drop in fatalities during the two years after its passage while the rest of the country averaged only a 5% drop. In Washington state, another mother who is reported to have lost her 3-year-old son to a drunken driver who had been cited 17 times previously, is advocating for a lowering of the blood alcohol limit, too. Her struggle has gone on for more than 30 years.

We hope our lawmakers will demonstrate to Hawaii voters that they feel the urgency of the need to stop these preventable deaths. In 2022, 117 people lost their lives on our roads. More than 30% of those fatalities could be tied to alcohol. There is no reason why we have to accept this utterly needless loss of life. Saving lives should be a compelling enough reason for our elected officials to act. Lower BAC now.

Theresa Paulette is program manager for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Hawaii State Office; Camlyn Pola is vice chair of the East Hawaii Drug-Free Coalition.