Extreme Drunk Driving

July 24, 2008— -- A Rhode Island man arrested this week for drunk driving had a potentially lethal blood-alcohol level and the highest ever recorded by police, setting a new state record.

Stanley Kobierowski, 34, was arrested in Providence, R.I., after smashing his car into an electronic message sign. According to state police, he allegedly blew a .489 and .491 on a Breathalyzer at the scene. That's more than six times the state's legal limit. He was brought to a local hospital and held for two days until sober enough to be arraigned, police said.

Kobierowski may be Rhode Island's record-setting drunk driver, but across the country police are reporting incidents of extreme drunk driving with recorded blood-alcohol levels reaching limits that doctors say would be lethal to most people.

The record-breaking levels have inspired some states to require convicted drunk drivers who have tested well over the legal limit to install in their cars ignition interlock devices that prevent drunks from starting the automobile.

States with interlock laws are divided between those that require the device for repeat offenders and those based on high BAC levels even for first-time offenders. Earlier this month Florida joined Kansas, Virginia and West Virginia in requiring first-time convicted drunk drivers arrested with blood alcohol content levels of more than .15 to install the devices in their cars.

No national statistics exist on BAC levels at time of arrest, but recent news reports pose an intriguing question: How do these drivers function, let alone live, with potentially deadly amounts of alcohol in their systems?

In November 2007, a 130-pound woman was arrested in Oregon with a blood-alcohol level of .55, seven times the state's legal limit and above the .4 concentration considered lethal according to physicians.

An Oregon judge set bail for Meagan Harper, 30, at $50,000.

A BAC level of .55, according to the Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies, would require a 100-pound man or woman to consume roughly 10 drinks in an hour or a 200-pound man to drink about six drinks each hour for four hours.