Fewer Iowans are drinking and driving — or at least fewer Iowans are getting caught. A report finds that from 1993 to ’99, the number of O-W-I cases prosecuted in the state fell from more than 21-thousand to below 18-thousand — a drop of about 15 percent. Mark Campbell, area administrator for the Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, credits changing attitudes about alcohol.Campbell says people are listening to and responding to anti-drunk driving campaigns on the radio and elsewhere.The federal government is pressuring states to pass tougher blood-alcohol level standards, threatening to withhold millions of dollars from states that don’t drop it to point-oh-eight. Iowa’s legal limit is point-one-oh. Campbell says it’s difficult to guess whether Iowa lawmakers will make the change next year.The number of drunk driving deaths is dropping in Iowa, too. Last year, 33- percent of all fatal wrecks in Iowa were alcohol-related. It was 37-percent in 1998.
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