ANNAPOLIS – A measure to reduce the legal drunken-driving threshold from .10 to .08 blood-alcohol content will likely become law after the Maryland Senate Thursday overwhelmingly approved the proposal.
The legislation passed 44-2, with Sens. Timothy R. Ferguson, R-Frederick, and Philip C. Jimeno, D-Anne Arundel, opposing the bill.
The House of Delegates passed identical legislation earlier this month, meaning the bill is ready for Gov. Parris N. Glendening’s signature.
“It’s a done deal,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr., D-Prince George’s, whose committee killed similar legislation three times in the past four years.
“The only thing that it needs is the governor’s signature.”
“It is good news,” said Raquel Guillory, Glendening’s spokeswoman, who said Glendening will sign the bill, although she didn’t know when. Glendening will start signing bills April 10, one day after the session ends.
Not only will the new law save lives, she said, but it will save the state from losing federal funds.
Maryland stands to lose $70 million in federal highway funds if the state fails to follow federal orders to lower the standard to .08 by 2003.
The law will take effect Sept. 30.
The bill renames the driving-while-intoxicated charge to driving while under the influence and reduces the threshold from .10 blood alcohol content to .08.
The General Assembly retained Maryland’s two-tier drunken-driving statute, renaming the lower threshold of .07 “driving while impaired” and keeping the same penalties for both offenses: a maximum $1,000 fine and 1 year in jail.
Some opponents fear the new threshold will actually be an injustice in Maryland law.
By lowering the drunken-driving threshold, “we’re taking a larger group of people who are not intoxicated,” Jimeno said. Toxicologists told the Judicial Proceedings Committee that a large percentage of people with a .10 content are “not intoxicated,” he said.
“I think everybody voted for it because we were forced by the federal government,” he said.
“But the fact that it will save lives will mean the that the federal government did a good job,” Sen. Ida G. Ruben, D-Montgomery, said in defense of her bill.
Vallario and Senate Judicial Proceedings Chairman Walter M. Baker, D- Cecil, announced last month that the .08 legislation would clear their committees, reassuring advocates for tougher drunken-driving laws such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
The Senate approved two other drunken-driving measures Thursday — permitting a prosecutor to tell a court a suspected drunken driver refused to take a Breathalyzer test and more stringent penalties for repeat offenders. The former bill, too, is on its way to Glendening’s desk.
“We’re excited about the other bills that passed (in the Senate Thursday),” Guillory said. However, the governor’s office favored the full package of legislation to “strengthen Maryland’s drunken-driving laws.”
The .08 legislation was the centerpiece of the more than 20 drunken driving-related bills introduced in the General Assembly this year. But most of them have died in committee.
Despite Thursday’s legislative victory, MADD will continue lobbying for more legislation, said Wendy Hamilton, MADD’s national vice president.
“(Drunken-driving deaths) will not go away until the Legislature has done everything to stop it,” Hamilton said. “We really have to put some teeth into the laws.”
“We’re passing some major changes in our drunken-driving laws,” Jimeno said before his repeat offender bill passed the Senate. “We ought to be proud.”
The House Judiciary Committee killed Jimeno’s bill Tuesday, and he said after the Senate vote, “There’s no question it’s dead for the year.”