The Wind River Indian Reservation has toughened its drunken-driving standards for tribal members.

The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes share the reservation in central Wyoming. The new legal blood-alcohol limit on the reservation is 0.05 percent. That’s just half of the reservation’s old limit of 0.1 percent and lower than Wyoming’s standard of 0.08 percent.

Eastern Shoshone tribal Chairman Ivan Posey pushed for the lower limit, saying that drunken driving is one of the main causes of premature death on the reservation. He said many pedestrians have been killed by drunken drivers over the years.

“Public safety was the first and foremost reason we changed these laws,” Posey said. “There was really no deterrent, or very strong deterrent, to keep people from putting themselves and others in danger.”

Posey said he hopes the state of Wyoming follows the tribes’ lead on this issue and also revises its blood-alcohol content limit down to .05.
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