Walter G. Noble, we wish we hardly knew ye.

Even after printing his photograph, and urging people to call police if they saw him driving, he did it (allegedly) anyway. Winthrop police picked him up Thursday. They charged him with operating under the influence.

Noble’s driving record is atrocious, and as long as the miles of pockmarked roadways in Maine. His latest arrest, however, is timely, given upcoming debate in Augusta over Maine’s drunken driving laws.

Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, has submitted legislation to reduce the threshold for drunken driving from a blood alcohol content, known as BAC, of .08 to .06.

His rationale for dropping BAC is to force people’s attention onto their alcohol consumption, and ease prosecutors’ ability to secure OUI convictions, especially for youthful offenders, who constitute the bulk of drunken driving offenders. A lower threshold for conviction is a potent deterrent, Mills told the Capital News Service.

Not everyone agrees with the prominent senator. Legislative colleagues, restaurant advocates, prosecutors and corrections officials have commented lowering the BAC threshold sounds like a plan with fine intentions, but questionable effectiveness.

One lawmaker, Rep. Stan Gerzovsky, D-Brunswick, has said he believes Maine’s system is unbroken, and not in need of fixing. With more than 7,200 OUI arrests in Maine in 2005, an astounding average of about 20 per day, it seems the current laws are ensnaring plenty of alleged offenders.

Count us among the skeptics. Changing Maine’s statutory definition of OUI pales as a solution, or deterrent, when compared to more stringent enforcement, and punitive punishment.

Some of the most comprehensive research on this topic comes from the Ottawa-based Traffic Injury Research Foundation, which studies drunken driving trends and policy. It’s found initial declines in drunken driving-related crimes stemming from .08 laws – which Maine was one of the first in the nation to adopt, in 1988 – have leveled since the mid-1990s.

TIRF has also found lowering BAC thresholds can change the perception of the drunken driving laws from good to bad, and possibly erode public support for anti-OUI initiatives, because they become viewed as a crackdown on common social practices, rather than a safety intitiative.

Most important, however, is that TIRF has discovered characteristics of drunken driving offenses have changed, with the significant problem now lying with the scourge of blatant, or chronic, offenders.

In response, states have stiffened penalties for drivers with high BACs, such as .15 or more, or enacted “vehicle incapacitation” laws, such as immediate impounding, wheel boots, or ignition interlocks. Enacting an interlock law is the subject of LD 856, which goes before the Legislature’s Criminal Justice committee today.

These are stronger ways to quell drunken driving than lowering the BAC, which although seemingly satisfying, only targets the problem’s margins, rather than its center.

People like Walter G. Noble.