The chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Vermont House says he’d like lawmakers to consider lowering the threshold at which a driver is drunk behind the wheel from a blood-alcohol content of .08 percent to a lowest-in-the-nation .05.
Representative William Lippert’s made that comment at the end of a legislative week that began with Franklin County residents gathering at the Statehouse to call for tougher drunken driving laws.
The demonstration was prompted by the death last fall of 18-year-old Nick Fournier in an accident. Police say the crash was caused by a drunken driver who was going the wrong way on Interstate 89.
Lippert’s committee took extensive testimony during the week about various aspects of the drunken driving issue.