Connecticut
CT seeks to lower drunk driving threshold. Here’s what the new BAC threshold would be.
With numerous wrong-way crashes and fatalities on Connecticut highways, state lawmakers called Wednesday for making it easier to arrest drunken drivers.
The legislature’s transportation committee is debating a bill that calls for reducing the drunken driving arrest threshold to 0.05% blood alcohol content, down from the current .08.
Thomas B. Chapman of the National Transportation Safety Board testified via Zoom in favor of lowering the limit, a position by the NTSB since 2013. Utah became the first state to do so in 2018 and has seen a drop in fatalities.
Dropping the level, Chapman said, would lower the death rate by an estimated 11%. Like Connecticut, other states that are currently considering .05 are Hawaii, Washington, New York, North Carolina and others.
“We are an outlier,” Chapman said, referring to the United States. “Over 100 countries in the world have .05 or lower … That includes much of Europe, where drinking is part of the culture. What is not part of the culture is drinking and driving. … You are impaired at .05. … There is a demonstrable diminishment in cognitive and physical skills at that level.”
Noting that some drivers would not be deterred and would ignore lower levels, Chapman said, “.05 is not the entire answer on this. It is a piece of the answer.”
Nationally, 13,384 people died in the United States in alcohol-related crashes in 2021, the most recent year where complete numbers are available. That includes 112 alcohol-related deaths in Connecticut.
State transportation Commissioner Garrett Eucalitto, testifying remotely Wednesday from a transportation meeting in Philadelphia, said, “What we have been doing as a state has not been working. … Drunk driving is a reckless choice made by the driver. … Everyone is impaired at .05. I know some people might argue with that … but the science is clear.”
Saying that Connecticut could emulate Utah, Eucalitto said the change to .05 did not decrease tourism or alcohol sales in Utah.
Marijuana impact
While the impact of drunken driving has been well documented for years, state legislators are also questioning the influence of the recent decriminalization of marijuana in Connecticut. Drivers smoking pot become impaired, and police have complained repeatedly that they do not have a simple test for marijuana in the way they can measure blood levels for alcohol.
Marijuana has been involved in some fatal accidents, and both drivers had traces of marijuana in their blood in the wrong-way crash last year that killed state Rep. Quentin “Q” Williams of Middletown after he left the governor’s inaugural ball in Hartford.
Rep. Thomas O’Dea, a New Canaan Republican, said lawmakers need to focus closely on the impact of cannabis on car crashes.
“That’s the elephant in the room in my opinion,” O’Dea said. “My biggest problem is the marijuana laws in Connecticut.”
Mark Mirko/The Hartford Courant
Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield is concerned about drivers who have been smoking marijuana and got involved in car crashes.
State Sen. Tony Hwang of Fairfield, the committee’s ranking Senate Republican, said the combination of marijuana and alcohol can be deadly.
“Impairment of any kind is part of the danger on the roads,” Hwang told Chapman. “If we only handle one part and not address the other, it may be a half-completed task. … If you lack common sense, you’re still going to have violators on the roads.”
Chapman responded that alcohol remains the biggest problem, but there is an “increasing prevalence of other impairing substances” that include marijuana.
“It is a growing problem — one that we are concerned about,” Chapman said. “It’s not as easy to test these other substances.”
He noted that airplane pilots have an even higher standard that keeps the skies safe. He noted that pilots avoid alcohol before flying under the mantra of “eight hours from bottle to throttle.”
State Rep. Devin Carney, an Old Lyme Republican, said, “We talk about Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, but we don’t talk about Big Alcohol.”
In an attempt to reduce crashes, the committee voted last year to lower the blood alcohol level for arrest. The measure passed by 21-15 with Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the bipartisan issue. The bill, however, never passed in the state House of Representatives and Senate before time expired.
The measure is part of a broader plan to reduce a skyrocketing number of fatalities on Connecticut roads. Legislators were stunned at 366 deaths on the roads in 2022 — about one per day. The statistics show that 2022 was the worst year on Connecticut roads since 1989. While fatalities dipped to 323 last year, the accidents are continuing this year.
If approved, Connecticut would follow Utah as the second state in the nation at .05. The national standard is .08 that states have enacted in order to avoid losing funding for federal highway construction. As a result, Connecticut is currently at the same level as nearby New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.
Wednesday marked the committee’s final public hearing of the 2024 legislative session as nearly 60 people signed up to testify. No decisions were made Wednesday, but all bills are subject to final approval by the full House of Representatives and state Senate before the regular session adjourns on May 8.
Statistics
Besides .05, the committee is working on overall traffic safety, including the deaths of pedestrians and a rash of wrong-way crashes on the highways.
In 2022, the 366 overall deaths were the highest in 33 years. Another peak in 2022 was 73 pedestrian fatalities, compared to 55 pedestrians in 2019 and 2021 and 51 last year.
Motorcycle deaths have claimed 68, 66, and 62 lives over the past three years, up sharply from 49 in 2019.
Wrong-way crashes also peaked in 2022 with 13 accidents that led to 23 fatalities, the highest total by far in recent years. Last year, the total dropped back down to 7 fatalities — still above the levels of four each in 2020 and 2021.
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com
BURLINGTON, Conn. (WTNH) — A woman is dead after police said she was involved in a head-on collision with a tractor-trailer on Friday in Burlington.
According to Connecticut State Police, a Toyota RAV4 and Peterbuilt 386 tractor-trailer collided head-on on Route 4 near Punch Brook Road at around 4:49 p.m. on Friday.
The driver of the Toyota, identified as 64-year-old Mary Christine Ferland of Burlington, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the tractor-trailer was not injured, according to state police. No one else was in either vehicle at the time of the crash.
The crash is still under investigation by state police, anyone with information is asked to call Trooper Brew at 860-626-7900.
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said Thursday she is working to “shut down the bureaucracy of education,” telling an audience in New Haven that she wants to diminish federal involvement in schools and give more discretion to states.
Speaking at an event on the campus of Yale University, McMahon defended moves by President Donald Trump’s administration to radically reshape the Department of Education since his return to office.
McMahon said the federal government will continue providing education funding in the future, but direct more of it through block grant programs that empower states to spend the money where it’s most needed.
The approach will help school leaders identify promising programs that can be replicated across the country, McMahon said.
“I want to leave behind, if you will, a toolkit of best practices that you can deliver to states to say, ‘Look, this is what’s working. You might want to give this a try,’” McMahon said.
Her remarks come amid controversial policy shifts in higher education by the Trump administration, including moves to freeze billions in research funding and grants to universities and pressure schools to address antisemitism, crack down on campus protest and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among other changes.
McMahon, a Greenwich resident and former CEO of Stamford-based World Wrestling Entertainment, stood by the administration’s tactics, saying the threat of withholding funds is a tool it can use to ensure universities spend money wisely and for the intended purpose.
“The goal is really to make sure that universities are giving equal opportunity across their campuses,” she said.
McMahon’s visit was part of a speaker series organized by the Buckley Institute, which describes itself as an independent nonprofit working to promote intellectual diversity and freedom of speech at Yale.
McMahon served as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term. She later helped establish Trump’s second administration as co-chair of his transition team, and was confirmed as education secretary last year.
During an appearance that lasted about 45 minutes, McMahon did not address many of the divisive policy changes enacted under her leadership. She said promoting literacy is her top priority, and touted the importance of school choice programs and career and technical education.
McMahon said she visited a community college in Connecticut earlier in the day, and met with the president of Yale during her stop at the school’s campus, which included a visit to Science Hill, the site of a major redevelopment project to support cutting-edge research into physical sciences and engineering.
Responding to a question from the moderator, McMahon also said she discussed so-called grade inflation with Yale’s president.
“One of the things that the university is looking at is to make sure that professors are grading accordingly in their classes, and that there’s not this grade inflation,” she said.
McMahon also briefly addressed recent controversy around a planned visit to an elementary school in Fairfield. Just hours after the event was announced, Fairfield Public Schools told families it was canceled due to community backlash.
McMahon said the event was planned as part of her nationwide “History Rocks!” tour, which celebrates the country’s 250th anniversary. Events typically include trivia games focused on history and civics that don’t have a partisan slant, she said.
“These are really feel-good programs of assembly,” she said, “and when you get that pushback from parents who are saying no this is going to be partisan … it’s really a minority of a few loud voices that are just calling … to maybe just make a statement of their own.”
McMahon has run unsuccessfully as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Connecticut. In 2009, she served for one year on the Connecticut Board of Education, appointed by then-Gov. Jodi Rell, a Republican. She has also served on the board of trustees of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield.
Responding to another question, McMahon reflected on how her time as a wrestling industry executive prepared her for her current role. She joked that she can “give you a mean body slam,” then said on a more serious note she benefitted throughout her life by always being open to new opportunities.
She stressed the importance of having university programs that teach older workers new skills.
“How great is it that we have these opportunities to go in a different direction?” McMahon said. “Just be wide open. Don’t think that you’re limited in your opportunity to do things. Be willing to take it on.”
This story was first published April 16, 2026 by Connecticut Public.
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