What are DUI laws?
In a real sense, DUI laws are a combination of federal and state government policies. The NHTSA has taken the lead in what driving under the influence of alcohol means. In the 1960s, NHTSA, then known as the National Highway Bureau, began to formulate a federal standard of the illegal blood-alcohol concentration level. Initially, NHTSA set it at a .10 BAC. By 1981, every state had set their BACs at this level or lower.In the 1990s, NHTSA once again defined a standard. This time the prohibited level was .08 or higher. Currently, this is the criterion for drunken driving in every state.The unique state government components of DUI laws are the methods of enforcing and penalizing violations of the prohibited BAC level of .08 or higher. The federal government is relatively uninvolved in these aspects of DUI laws.Finally, states can and have set other BAC levels for different policy purposes. For example, some states have created the offense of aggravated drunken driving and defined it in t
