Utah already has the harshest drunk driving laws in the U.S., and they’re about to get even harsher. As of yesterday, January 1, 2026, everyone, regardless of their age, will have to show their ID to prove they are allowed to buy alcohol, reports ABC4. Additionally, people convicted of an “extreme DUI” will not be allowed to buy alcohol at all, no matter their age.
House Bill 437, also known as the 100% ID Law, enables the courts to designate someone convicted of driving under the influence as an “interdicted” person. This designation is required if the person is convicted of an “extreme DUI,” which existing Utah law defines as either a blood alcohol content of .16 or higher, .05 when combined with another controlled substance, or two or more unprescribed controlled substances in combination. An interdicted person is prohibited from buying alcohol for a period of time specified by the court, and must obtain a special driver’s license that says “No Alcohol Sale.”
Utah was already the only state with a legal limit of .05 instead of the .08 limit that other states have adopted. That’s low enough for me to touch after just a couple of beers. A smaller woman could reach that after just one. Not that we’re encouraging anyone to drive after drinking, of course. Other states have considered this change, but so far, Utah is the only one that has implemented it.
Utah’s interesting attitude on alcohol
Of course, as anyone who has ever been under the age of 21 knows, not being allowed to buy alcohol completely prevents you from ever being able to obtain it. It’s not like anyone can simply buy it for you, which no one ever did for me when I was in college and didn’t look 21, something Utah’s interdicted people don’t have to worry about. You certainly couldn’t buy it out of state and bring it back with you, which was already completely illegal until 2020.
The Beehive State has some other, shall we say, interesting regulations regarding alcohol. The same law that legalized bringing up to nine liters of wine (about a case) into the state also raised the limit of what the state considered liquor from a mere 4% to a whopping 5%. That means you still have to go to a state-run liquor store to buy Bud Ice with its 5.5% alcohol content, never mind stronger beers or pretty much any wine. If you want to drink at a restaurant, you are required to buy food first. Until 2017, areas where drinks were mixed and poured were required to be out of sight from patrons, resulting in the so-called “Zion Curtain” partitions at bars inside restaurants, because if people can’t see it, it must not exist.
These rather draconian measures against alcohol, some of which Utah has only begun to relax within the past ten years, probably seem a bit harsh to many of us. The Mormons, who established modern-day Utah, generally don’t believe in drinking alcohol, though their faith also does not directly prohibit it, a philosophy that these laws reflect. However, out of all the states, Utah has one of the lowest rates of fatal DUI crashes. Maybe there’s something to that.
