For the primary time, the state Senate just lately handed a invoice to make Washington’s blood-alcohol authorized restrict much more restrictive. Ought to it go the Home and be signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson, the state would grow to be solely the second, behind Utah, to decrease the authorized restrict from .08% to .05%.
The measure may be profitable in driving extra Washingtonians at hand off the automobile keys for an evening in town. However lawmakers shouldn’t be fooled into considering it’s a panacea for the carnage on Washington roads — now as much as greater than 700 deaths yearly.
A brand new DUI commonplace gained’t quell a extra pressing drawback lawmakers should do extra to deal with: a statewide failure to promptly prosecute intoxicated drivers police have already got arrested.
Most go months with out dealing with felony prices — in the event that they face penalties in any respect. The holdup? Processing suspects’ blood samples on the Washington State Patrol’s toxicology labs. Final yr, the lab took greater than 300 days, on common, to provide leads to DUI and associated circumstances. Most defendants have been free to maintain driving all that point. Lab exams generally aren’t accomplished even inside two years, which is past the time restrict prosecutors can convey a cost in any respect.
Toxicology exams in Idaho, in contrast, take a couple of month to research, based on Rep. David Hackney, D-Renton, who has lengthy advocated to repair the backlog.
The outcomes of this lax accountability might be tragic. Take the case of a 36-year-old Mason County man who allegedly drove his pickup into an Amazon supply van in Belfair in January 2024. State troopers decided he was possible excessive on medication; a choose permitted a blood pattern to search out out.
That pattern wasn’t analyzed till July 2025 — 5 months after he drove his truck into oncoming visitors on Freeway 302 close to Gig Harbor, putting and killing a Port Orchard motorcyclist.
Lawmakers who care about accountability and public security should discover methods to hurry clearing this baffling backlog that delays justice in courthouses across the state. A great begin is House Bill 1228, sponsored by Hackney, which might allow private labs to pick up some of the toxicology testing slack.
Ultimately, lawmakers should face the inevitable: Juries at this time view a blood pattern because the gold commonplace for proof in a profitable prosecution. Following hashish legalization and the rise of fentanyl abuse, the state’s labs have been swamped. They may want extra staffing and assets to efficiently overcome what’s at this time a 15,000-case backlog.
Justice delayed is justice denied — that features accountability and sometimes therapy for intoxicated drivers. And it places the driving public in danger.
So the Legislature could properly comply with Utah into adopting a .05% blood-alcohol restrict. However our state lacks the capability to implement the legal guidelines already on the books. And whereas Utah’s roadway deaths have declined for the reason that pandemic, its toxicology testing produces outcomes much more rapidly — in 30 days, on common. Washington’s new authorized restrict could grow to be regulation, however it’ll lack the enamel to maintain probably the most harmful drivers off the streets.
