The Scientific Committee has announced a number of the plenary speakers for the 16th ICADTS International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety. They include Dr. Richard Jessor, University of Colorado, Risk and Protective Factors in Adolescent Health, Behavior, and Development: Implications for Risky Driving, Dr. J. Frank Yates, University of Michigan, Risky Driving from a Decision Making Perspective and Dr. Louise Nadeau, Université de Montréal, The Treatment of Alcohol Dependence; What Are the Obstacles to a Good Prognosis? In addition, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, Administrator of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Dr. Brian Jonah, Director of Road Safety Programs for Transport Canada will discuss the governments response to drinking and driving in their respective countries.
A reduced registration fee for ICADTS members of $625 Canadian (about $393 US or 456 Euros) and $725 Canadian (about $456 US or 529 Euros) for non-members is available until May 30, 2002. Those who register early will be eligible for a series of prizes. The registration fee includes the welcoming reception, lunches, the conference banquet and the conference proceedings. The Organizing Committee is preparing an entertainment surprise for the Tuesday evening banquet to give you a dessert you won't forget.
Additional information concerning the conference can be obtained from the conference website at: www.saaq.gouv.qc.ca/t2002, by tel: 514-395-1808, fax: 514-395-1801, or email: info@opus3.com. The preliminary program is now available including details on the scientific program, the social activities, companions program, and pre- and post-conference activities. It also includes conference and hotel registration information. Registration can be accomplished on-line by visiting the website noted above.
Information is also included on the MADD Canada/MADD U.S. August 3, 2002 workshop on Effective Change through Grassroot Mobilization. For details, call 800-665-6233 (within Canada) or 905-813-6233 (outside of Canada) or visit the websites of the organizations, www.MADD.ca or www.MADD.org.
ICADTS will present a series of awards at a special ceremony at the 16th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety in Montréal, Québec, Canada. The prestigious Widmark Award, and the gold medals that accompany the award, will be presented to former ICADTS President Dr. A. J. (Jack) McLean, Director of the Road Accident Research Unit, of the University of Adelaide in Australia and to Prof. Ralph Hingson, Associate Dean for Research, at the Boston University School of Public in Boston in the U.S. Both are being honored for their lifelong work to the field of alcohol, drugs and traffic safety. Both Dr. McLean and Prof. Hingson have made significant contributions to scientific knowledge and public policy in their own countries and around the world. The Widmark Award was established in 1965 in honor of Professor Erik M. P. Widmark of the University of Lund in western Sweden, whose comprehensive research work during the first half of this century touched on all the aspects of the pharmacology of alcohol. It is the highest honor that ICADTS can confer on individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions to our basic knowledge of the effects of alcohol and other mood-altering drugs on traffic safety. The names of the previous 24 winners of the Widmark Award can be found on the ICADTS website: www.icadts.org.
In addition, ICADTS will present the new Haddon Award for the first time. This award will be presented to Prof. Alain Verstraete, of the Laboratory of Clinical Biology-Toxicology of University Hospital in Ghent, and Dr. Viviane A. Maes, Clinical Biologist-Toxicologist at the Academic Hospital of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Advocating scientifically based changes to public policy in Belgium, their leadership was instrumental in the establishment of new per se legislation for illicit drugs. They also guided policy-makers to establish a campaign on medicinal drugs and driving. The Haddon Award, established by ICADTS in 1999, recognizes those who have advocated scientifically based changes to public policy which have reduced the adverse effects of alcohol or other drugs on traffic safety. The award is named in honor of Dr. William Haddon, Jr., a physician and epidemiologist, and a pioneer in the highway safety field. As a researcher and administrator, he contributed substantially to the development and application of effective methods to reduce motor vehicle injuries by insisting that the field be based on science.
The number of U.S. alcohol-related traffic deaths in 2001 remained the same as in 2000, indicating that a renewed effort to curb impaired driving is needed in the US. Preliminary crash data released by the US Department of Transportation reported that the percentage of traffic deaths that were alcohol related in 2001 was at 40%, the same as in 2000. There were 16,652 deaths, only one fewer than in 2000. The total number of highway deaths dropped slightly to 41,730, as compared to 41,821 in 2000 and the death rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled remained statistically the same: 1.50 in 2001 as compared to the 2000 rate of 1.52. More information can be found on the website of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: www.nhtsa.dot.gov.
A special session at T 2002 will address recent trends in impaired driving in countries around the world, including the US, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and others.
The European Commission has initiated the Impaired Motorists, Methods of Roadside Testing and Assessment for Licensing (IMMORTAL), a research program concerning the crash risk associated with different forms of driver impairment and the identification of "tolerance levels" applied to licensing assessment and roadside impairment testing. IMMORTAL is supported within the Competitive and Sustainable Growth (GROW-2000) program coordinated by the University of Leeds School of Psychology in Great Britain.
The research sponsored by IMMORTAL focuses on chronic impairment from aging, mental illness and disease as well as acute impairment from drugs, alcohol, and medicines. The policy function of the project will provide workshops on these and other impairment factors and consider relevant countermeasures, including licensing and impairment testing. The work plan on alcohol, drugs and medicines includes a combination of epidemiological and experimental methods to provide the basis to calculate crash risk and tolerance levels with reference to available data on fatal and injury crashes. For further information, see: www.immortal.or.at. A special session on this project is planned for the T 2002 conference.
A new study of college drinking in the U.S. finds that an estimated 1,400 students aged 18 to 24 are killed every year in accidents related to alcohol, including traffic crashes, falls, drownings, and other accidents. Drinking also contributes to an estimated 500,000 injuries and 70,000 cases of sexual assault. The study was reported as part of the Task Force on College Drinking convened by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Chief researcher, Ralph Hingson, of the Boston University School of Public Health, said that he believes the estimates are, if anything, too conservative. Though the incidence of accidents is alarming, rates of drinking may be declined, with the proportion of abstainers increasing from 15% to 19% between 1993 and 1999. The proportion of students who drink heavily, however, (defined as five or more drinks at a time for men and four or more for women) has stayed the same during that time period, about 40%. The 20% of students who drink most heavily account for nearly 70% of the alcohol consumed by students.
Universities can reduce drinking and related problems through a variety of strategies, including enforcing existing age 21 laws on campus, changing social norms about abstinence, communicating alcohol policies to students and parents, and limiting the availability of alcohol on campus. The researchers point out that educational efforts focused primarily on providing facts about alcohol and its potential harms have been shown to be ineffective. The report, along with related papers, appears in the March 2002 issue of The Journal of Studies on Alcohol.
Winners of the annual drinking and driving prevention competition of colleges and universities in the Western United States were recently announced by the Automobile Club of Southern California and the Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention. The $5000 grand prize winner was the University of Texas at Austin for its program designed to change campus drinking norms. California State University at Bakersfield, Santa Clara University in California, New Mexico State University, and Westminster College in Utah also received awards. Additional information on the awards program can be obtained from Steven Bloch, Automobile Club of Southern California, Telephone: 714-885-2313, email: bloch.steven@aaa-calif.com or from the Higher Education Center's Website: www.edc.org/hec.
The UK Department for Transportation, Local Government and the Regions has published a report on the law as it relates to dangerous driving. The government acknowledged public concern that charges brought against drivers who cause death or serious injury and the sentences imposed on them often do not reflect the seriousness of the crashes they cause. In response to this concern, a law was passed in 1991 establishing the offense of Dangerous Driving and Causing Death by Dangerous Driving. The current project was designed to identify procedural or legislative difficulties in the current system with regard to the use of the 1991 law. A number of cases charged under the new offense were tracked. Conviction and sentencing trends before and after the 1991 law were also examined along with the traffic violations and criminal histories of offenders convicted of dangerous driving. The study found that drivers who substantially fail in their duty of care to other road users often face the same charge of careless driving as those guilty of very minor offenses. The report suggests the creation of new "negligent driving" offenses with penalties between dangerous and careless driving. It also suggested that the current offense of Causing Death by Dangerous Driving along with the proposed intermediate offense should be extended to apply to serious injury as well as death. The study found that certain behaviors were treated inconsistently under the law. For example, excess speed was taken to indicate dangerous driving in some cases but not in others.
Copies of the report Dangerous Driving and the Law, by Pearce, Knowles, Davies, and Buttress, are available from DTLR, PO Box 236, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7NB. It is also on the website: www.roads.dtlr.gov.uk/roadsafety/research26/index.htm.
(Source: TRL News, March 2002)
The British Medical Association Scotland has called for testing of drivers suspected of drug use and has asked its membership to consider ways of supporting the police in their efforts against drugged drivers by raising awareness of the potential dangers of drugged driving. In order to assist debate and raise awareness about this issue, the BMA has produced a web resource outlining the current legal situation and the implications of drug taking on driving and the need to develop effective tests of impairment and drug levels. Visit the BMA web resource website at: www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/content/_hub+science+drug+driving.
Between the 1980s and 1990s the number of people involved in fatal road accidents who tested positive for cannabis has increased four-fold (3% - 12%), with detection of illegal drugs overall increasing from 3% to 18%. The BMA fears that this number will rise given the increasing use of drugs. Drug Misuse Statistics 2001 reported that 36 per cent of 16 to 24 year-olds in Scotland said that they had taken drugs. In a separate survey of club-goers, 69 per cent had taken cannabis and 85 per cent of these had at some time driven after using illegal drugs.
The problem of drug driving is not merely related to drug misuse in terms of illegal drugs. The impact of some prescribed drugs and treatments (e.g. sedatives, anti-depressants and eye drops) are also relevant. Although patients are warned of the side effects (e.g. drowsiness, impaired vision), research has shown that they tend to ignore the advice given to them by doctors and pharmacists, and in information leaflets.The BMA believes that the general public needs to be made more aware that the side effects of certain prescribed drugs can affect the ability to drive.
The British Medical Association has written a brief detailing the current situation and the actions they would like the government to take. This brief has been tabled in Parliament.
A new graduated licensing system in Pennsylvania, implemented in 1999, has resulted in dramatic reductions in crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving 16-year-old drivers. For example, crashes were down 27%, injuries dropped nearly a third, and fatalities are down 58%. Features of the new law include the requirement of 50 hours of supervised driving over a period of at least six months, supervision by a licensed driver at least 21 years old, swift and certain sanctions for dangerous teen drivers, and a nighttime driving curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. In addition, the number of passengers must not exceed the number of seat belts in the vehicle. (Source: Directions in Highway Safety, Vol.4, No. 1)
Editors of a special issue of Transportation Research E have issued a call for papers on alcohol, road safety, and public policy. Patrick McCarthy, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Richard Tay, of Queensland University of Technology hope to attract contributions from Europe, North America, ad Asia Pacific on recent research results that will provide policy makers with new insights on the role of alcohol consumption in road safety and the effects that various policies have had on alcohol related incidents.
They hope to identify a more complete set of policies in engineering, education, economics, and enforcement. Papers are due November 30, 2002. They should be submitted by email only to mccarthy@econ.gatech.edu or r.tay@gut.edu.au. Information about the journal can be found at http://www.elsevier.nl/inca/publications/store/6/0/0/2/4/4/index.htt.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Working partners for an Alcohol- and Drug-Free Workplace program has added a new section to its Web site that addresses practical steps employers can take to help prevent impaired driving. Program organizers note that employers have the potential to help curb impaired driving both among their employees and in the community.
The Web site includes information on why employers should be concerned about impaired driving, prevention initiatives employers can support and steps they can take, strategies to send employees a safe and sober message, tips for office celebrations, and other web sites of interest. The web address is www.dol.gov/dol/workingpartners.htm. Click on "Special Issue: Impaired Driving."
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Emergency Nurses Association recently issued a report on Developing Best Practice Standards of Emergency Medical Care for the Alcohol Impaired Patient. The report is based on a conference that brought together health care professionals to develop best practices of emergency medical care for the alcohol-impaired patient.
Patients with alcohol use problems are more likely to drive after drinking and have higher rates of illness and motor vehicle crash injury than the general population. Health promotion and prevention of injury and other disease mandates a structured approach to these patients. These patients come into contact with all phases of the emergency medical services system as a result of their high-risk behavior. Treating this disorder leads to reductions in impaired driving episodes, which in turn leads to fewer alcohol-related crash injuries. Emergency nurses, emergency physicians, and pre-hospital providers have a unique role to play in the identification of the disease, patient education and intervention, and referral for formal evaluation and treatment. The need for increased attention to this issue arises from the general attitude held by many practitioners that treating the underlying alcohol problems in patients who are sick or injured due to alcohol abuse is futile, in spite of emerging research to the contrary. Therefore, screening for the disease and appropriate intervention and referral are not widely practiced in the emergency setting, thus missing a prime opportunity for prevention of an epidemic disease. Moreover, many of these patients may interface with the medical system only through the emergency department, particularly at early stages of their disease when they can benefit most from intervention and treatment. Recommended best practices are included for pre-hospital professionals, nurses, and physicians. To see the full report and for more information, go to the NHTSA website: www.nhtsa.dot.gov.
June 9-11, 2002
20th Anniversary Lifesavers-National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities-Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA
Contact Lifesavers 2002 Conference, P.O. Box 30045, Alexandria, VA 22310, Fax: 703-922-7780, Website: www.lifesaversconference.org.
July 23-25, 2002
14th Annual Symposium on Alcohol and Drug Enforcement - Kissimmee, Florida, USA
Contact the Institute of Police Technology and Management at Tel: 904-620-4786, or visit website: www.iptm.org.
August 3, 2002
Effective Change Through Grassroots Mobilization-Montréal, Québec, Canada
For information about the workshop or to register, call MADD at 1-800-665-6233 within Canada or 1-905-6233 outside of Canada.
August 4-9, 2002
16th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety, T2002- Montréal, Québec, Canada
For information visit the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec website: www.saaq.gouv.qc.ca/t2002.
September 22-25, 2002
18th World Congress of the International Traffic Medicine Association-Cairo, Egypt
Information available from Congress Secretariat, Misr Travel, 1, Talaat Harb Street, PO Box 1000, Cairo, Egypt, Email: itma2002@ie-eg.com, Fax: 202-392-4440.
October 6-9, 2002
Global Safety Conference-Portoro, Slovenia
Conference will cover the reduction and prevention of injuries at work (including workplace drug testing), in traffic, at home and during leisure time.
Contact the Institute for Occupational Safety, Bohori eva ulica 22 a, Ljubljana, Slovenia, Tel: 386 1 432 02 53, ext.217, email: kristina.abrahamsberg@zvd.si, website: www.zvd.si
January 12-16, 2003
82nd Annual Meeting of the U. S. Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC USA
Special alcohol and drug sessions will be featured. Meetings of the TRB Committee on Alcohol, Other Drugs and Transportation and the ICADTS Executive Board will also be scheduled.
Contact Dr. Richard Pain, Tel: 202-334-2960, Fax: 202-334-2003, Email: rpain@nas.edu.