WEST JORDAN, Utah — Glendon Mitchell is pleased with the results of a new study about Utah's .05 Blood Alcohol Content level.
"It’s a relief and exciting for our family," he told FOX 13 News on Tuesday.
Mitchell is the grandfather of 13-year-old Eli Mitchell, who was hit and killed by a drunk driver in 2022. Glendon Mitchell has long advocated for laws that crack down on intoxicated driving. He was pleased with what he read in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine examining the impact of Utah's move to a first-in-the-nation .05 BAC level for DUI.
"As a family who lives and literally hundreds and, frankly, thousands of people in our state deal with the realities of what happened to my grandson Eli, any movement in a safer direction we view as really positive," he said.
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The study examined crash fatality statistics in Utah and other states and concluded that Utah's .05 BAC "was associated with meaningful decreases in alcohol-related crash fatalities, strengthening the evidence supporting the public health importance of evidence-based policy and strongly supporting broader adoption of 0.05 blood alcohol concentration limits nationwide."
Rep. Norm Thurston, R-Provo, who sponsored the 2018 law that lowered Utah's BAC from .08 to .05 called the study's results "good news."
"Exactly what we wanted to find," he told FOX 13 News on Tuesday. "That people’s behavior has changed. That the incidents of people who are drinking and driving is going down."
Even some who were initially critical of the move to .05 appeared pleased with the study's conclusions. When the bill to lower the DUI level was first proposed, there were protests and fears that it would harm Utah's hospitality and tourism industry. The state already suffers from a perception that its alcohol laws are "weird."
After Utah moved to the lower level for DUI, many bars and restaurants leaned into educating people about the new BAC and partnering with rideshare services to ensure people weren't drinking and driving. Figures from Utah's Department of Public Safety still show the vast majority of those arrested for a DUI are well over the old BAC level of .08 (the average is .14).
"We welcome this research. It shows that what we’ve been doing for years has been working," said Michele Corigliano, the executive director of the Salt Lake Area Restaurant Association.
While Corigliano conceded that the study's conclusions suggest .05 BAC has worked and changed behavior, she told FOX 13 News her group has seen other impacts from the law.
"Because behavior changed and people are more likely to do a ride share — which is great — it adds 30% to your night out. So yes, restaurants and bars are down substantially when it comes to alcohol sales," she said. "Not that we’re looking to increase alcohol sales and have unsafe roads, but it does make people think, 'Do I have the means to go out more often?'"
So far, no other state has moved from .08 to .05, but Rep. Thurston said other legislatures have considered bills similar to his. Earlier this year, one lawmaker hinted at potentially moving to a .02 BAC for Utah. But Rep. Thurston said Tuesday that was unlikely.
".02 is probably the correct number," he said. "I don’t think there's the political appetite for it and we also don’t have the data and the studies to support going to .02."
