Here’s How MA Ranks Nationally In Strictness Of DUI Laws

BOSTON — A prominent national law firm recently published a comprehensive ranking of the states according to the strictness of their DUI laws and penalties, and Massachusetts turned out to have some of the nation's toughest.

The report was based on information from the Governors Highway Safety Administration, the National Council of State Legislatures and the National Highway Safety Administration. The Siegfried & Jensen firm scored each state based on 21 metrics, including DUI arrests, fatalities, the strictness of open-container laws and the legal threshold for blood-alcohol content.

Massachusetts ranked 11th overall, with 1.7 DUI-related fatalities per 100 thousand people, 176 DUI arrests per 100,000 drivers and a BAC threshold of 0.08.

Other metrics cited in the report showed that Massachusetts has:

• Injuries per 100,000 population: 58
• Jail time for first, second and third DUI offense: 0, 30 and 150 days
• Fine for first, second and third DUI offense: $500, $600, $1,000
• License suspension for first, second and third DUI offense: six, 12 and 18 months

Drunken driving is the No. 1 cause of death on U.S. roadways, with 300,000 incidents a day, 10,876 deaths a year, and 290,000 injuries every year, according to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, an organization fighting to end impaired driving across the country.

In 2018, Utah became the first state to reduce the legal blood-alcohol limit for drunken driving from .08 percent to .05 percent, according to the report. Utah also finished second overall in strictest DUI laws across the country.

Here are the top ten overall states:

1. Minnesota: 76.7
2. Utah: 69.4
3. Georgia: 69.3
4. Delaware: 64.7
5. Kansas: 64.4
6. New York: 64.3
7. Florida: 63.4
8. New Jersey: 62.4
9. Washington: 62.1
10. Nebraska: 61.6

South Dakota ranked as the weakest state in the U.S. for DUI laws and penalties — with Wyoming, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Maryland rounding out the bottom five.