Last year, Connecticut recorded more than 300 traffic related fatalities. Alcohol was involved in a third of them.
In an effort to address what transportation officials see as a serious problem on the state’s roadways, lawmakers are considering legislation to crack down on drunk driving.
Senate Bill 1376 would set Connecticut’s legal blood alcohol content, or BAC, for drivers and boaters to 0.05%, down from its current limit of 0.08%. If passed, Connecticut would be the second state in the country to adopt the 0.05% limit, following Utah; A handful of other states are considering a similar change.
The legislature’s Transportation Committee heard testimony on the bill Wednesday.
Garrett Eucalitto, Commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, told lawmakers the legislation could reduce alcohol-related crashes on roadways.
“Lowering the BAC is proven to be effective,” he said, adding that it “shifts behavior and acts as a deterrent” against driving while intoxicated.
National Transportation Safety Board member Tom Chapman, who also testified at Wednesday’s hearing, said alcohol was involved in one-third of the traffic related fatalities in Connecticut in 2024. He said lowering the legal BAC is one step the state can take to reduce these deaths.
In 2021 and 2022, Chapman said, drivers with blood alcohol levels between 0.05% and 0.07% were responsible for 12 and 9 fatalities, respectively. In contrast, there were 117 and then 128 deaths caused by people with blood alcohol levels of 0.08% or higher in those same years.
“Certainly the number of fatalities in that lower range is less,” Chapman said, but, “it’s certainly not zero.”
Some lawmakers suggested the bill wouldn’t address the larger number of deaths caused by people with a BAC level that is already illegal. Rep. Tom O’Dea, R-New Canaan, said most alcohol-related fatalities involve a driver whose BAC is well above 0.08%.
Addressing Commissioner Eucalitto during his testimony, O’Dea asked, “We’ve got a problem in Connecticut with a lack of — there’s a lot less vehicles being pulled over by the police. Is that fair to say?”
Eucalitto responded in the affirmative.
O’Dea said the state should also be looking to crack down on people driving while under the influence of cannabis. “Don’t you think that preventing people from smoking marijuana while driving would be an even bigger help?” O’Dea said.
Chapman, of the NTSB, said the two issues were “parallel problems,” and that lowering the legal BAC level for drivers is one tool to address a multifaceted problem.
Rep. Aimee Berger-Girvalo, D-Ridgefield, said there’s no single avenue to solving drug- and alcohol-related fatalities. “Whether we’re talking about polydrug impairment or alcohol-related specifically, this does require multimodal solutions,” she said.
S.B. 1376 also seeks to promote phlebotomy training for police officers and to study the feasibility of electronic warrant technology that might help police more quickly obtain warrants for people suspected of driving under the influence.
Colin McAllister, Naugatuck Chief of Police, said at the hearing that these changes would improve what he sees as inefficient processes for police dealing with drunk drivers. He said obtaining a physical warrant can be particularly difficult and time-consuming after hours. “In cases where time is critical, such as DUI investigations, this system is impractical and not workable within the confines of the current statute,” he said.
McAllister also said breath and urine samples are limited in their ability to identify inebriation, and blood samples can only be taken by hospital staff for medical, not evidential, reasons.
But some advocates expressed opposition to that aspect of the bill.
In written testimony, Jess Zaccagnino of ACLU-CT expressed concerns that phlebotomy testing and other drug-related traffic enforcement might be administered inequitably. “As with many types of policing, traffic enforcement disproportionately impacts Black and brown people,” she said.
Zaccagnino said phlebotomy testing was “much more invasive of privacy and bodily integrity than a breathalyzer test,” and she urged lawmakers to reconsider.