The Organising Committee for T2004 continues to meet on a regular basis and plans are developing well. An important innovation at T2004 will be a series of four, one day workshops - each focusing on the practical issues of Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety from the aspects of Police Enforcement, Legal Issues, Work Related Transport Issues [road, rail, sea and air] and Drugs and Driving [licit and illicit]. Each workshop has been assigned a regional co-ordinator, and details of these and how to become involved as a workshop participant will be posted on the Conference website at the end of May 2003. The first plenary on the closing day will feature summary presentations of these Workshops, following which the ICADTS President will be invited to sum up the whole Conference. In this way we hope to suggest areas of practical research that might be addressed and then reported on at T2007 in Seattle.
The call for scientific papers, workshop participation and poster contributions will be made at the end of May 2003, via the website (www.ICADTS2004.com). All subsequent submissions, review and notification procedures will be carried out electronically. However, for those who do not have web access, hard copy procedures will also be available. A hardcopy book of abstracts will be issued to all delegates as they register. Check the website at the end of May for details.
The call to register will also be made via the Conference website, and is scheduled for October 2003, once the registration fee has been finalised. In the meantime, please visit the site and add your name to the mailing list. If you wish to use the hardcopy method of abstract submission, or for any other reason, please contact: Claire Cresswell, T2004 Conference Secretariat, Meeting Makers Ltd, Jordanhill Campus, 76 Southbrae Drive, Glasgow G13 1PP, Scotland, UK. Phone +44 [0] 141 434 1500, Fax : +44 [0] 141 434 1519, E-mail: claire@meetingmakers.co.uk.
Much hard work is going into making T2004 a useful, enjoyable and informative Conference. The whole Organising Team is dedicated to making the meeting a success, and we all look forward to welcoming you to Scotland in August 2004.
Paul M Williams
T2004 Organising Committee
New officers have been elected by the members of ICADTS. The new officers assume their positions at an Executive Board in Glasgow, Scotland, on August 6, 2003. Four of the Board positions carry forward from the last election. Han de Gier of The Netherlands becomes President. Dan Mayhew of Canada becomes Secretary. Mary Sheehan of Australia becomes Treasurer and Barry Sweedler of the USA becomes Past President, with duties as chair of the Award, Membership and Nominating Committees. Ralph Hingson of the USA was elected President-elect. Barry Logan of the USA was elected Assistant Treasurer and Asbjørg Christophersen of Norway, Assistant Secretary. Richard Compton and Sue Ferguson of the USA were elected Executive Board members-at-large. Inger Marie Bernholt of Denmark and Günter Berghaus of Germany continue their terms as the remaining Board members.
Newly elected Board members-at-large will serve 6-year terms. All other officials will serve for three years in their new positions. Sixty two percent of the dues paying members participated in the election, ably conducted by Hans Laurell.
Leaving the Executive Board after many years of service to ICADTS are Hans Laurell of Sweden (Past President), Charles Mercier-Guyon of France (Treasurer), Beth Wells Parker of the USA (Secretary) and Andrew Clayton of the UK and Allan Williams of the USA (Members-at-large).
The number of people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. in 2002 increased to 42,116 an increase in 1.7% over 2001 and the highest number since 1990. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) remained unchanged at 1.51, according to preliminary estimates. Alcohol-related fatalities increased 3% to 17,970 (42% of all fatalities). Alcohol-involved drivers in fatal crashes increased 4.2%. The increase was concentrated in drivers of vans (6%), SUVs (11%) and of motorcycles (7%). Deaths in low alcohol crashes (.01-.07% BAC) dropped 7.2 percent to 2,335 deaths. Deaths of persons in high alcohol crashes (.08% BAC and above) rose 4.7 percent. Alcohol-related fatalities have been rising steadily since 1999.
"As a nation, we should be outraged over the loss of nearly 43,000 of our friends, neighbors and family members," said NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge, M.D. "All of us - individuals as well as government - should resolve to make highway safety our highest public health priority." The figures were part of an early assessment released in April by NHTSA. Summaries of the preliminary report are available on the NHTSA web site at: www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/Rpts/2003/2002EARelease.pdf.
The number of fatal road crashes caused by drivers younger than 26 rose nearly 25% in Finland in 2001. The sharpest increase was among new drivers. Two thirds of drivers who where driving in their first or second year and causing a single-vehicle fatal crash were drunk and/or speeding. These types of crashes have tripled in three years. In the age group of slightly older drivers, up to 26 years of age, three of every four fatal single-vehicle crashes occurred on the weekend. These drivers also caused more head-on collisions, two thirds of which occurred on weekdays.
According to preliminary data for 2002, 27% of the drivers causing crashes were suspected of being drunk. For fatal cyclist crashes, 12% of the cyclists causing the crash were suspected of being drunk, as were 38% of pedestrians. The information is derived from the work of the Finnish road accident investigation teams. (Source: Finnish Motor Insurers' Centre Press Releases dated November 7, 2002 and February 27, 2003).
Canadians rank driving while impaired by illegal drugs as second only to drinking and driving in terms of serious road safety problems. Despite this concern, the Road Safety Monitor's Drugs and Driving report by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) shows that many Canadians admit to having driven after using some type of potentially impairing drug at least once in the past 12 months. As many as 3.7 million Canadians admit they drove after taking drugs in the past year. Specific findings include:
"It's disturbing to learn that so many licensed drivers in Canada report driving within two hours of taking some type of potentially impairing drug," said TIRF President and CEO Herb Simpson. "It's also worrisome that they aren't fully aware of the consequences." The results of the annual survey by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation were released on February 27 as part of its Road Safety Monitor series of reports and are based on telephone polling of more than 1,200 drivers. A copy of the full report is available at: www.trafficinjuryresearch.com.
The State of California Department of Motor Vehicles recently released a report intitled DUI Countermeasures in California: What Works and What Doesn't, with Recommendations for Legislative Reform. The report, authored by Cliff Helander, identifies four legislative programs and initiatives that have the potential to produce major reductions in the incidence of impaired driving. These include:
Other countermeasures that can have an effect include lower illegal per se BAC levels, mandatory license suspension for all convicted DUI offenders, mandatory vehicle impoundment for repeat offenders, and increased use of house arrest in lieu of jail. The report also identifies programs that have not proven effective in reducing impaired driving. These include jail or community service and fines. For further information or a copy of the report, contact Cliff Helander at the California DMV, Email: chelander@dmv.ca.gov.
A recent review by Johannes G. Ramaekers, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, summarizes the results of double-blind, cross-over, placebo controlled studies of antidepressants (including amitriptyline, imipramine, doxepin, and mianserin) on driver performance using a standard test. Changes in vehicular weaving during one hour of on-the-road driving in normal traffic were comparable to those seen in drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of .08 percent or more. Driving performance returned to placebo levels after one week of treatment except after treatment with mianserin, for which the impairing effect lasted unabated. Nocturnal doses of sedating anti-depressants did not produce residual driving impairment when measured the next day. Conventional tests of psychomotor performance or self-ratings of side effects did not strongly predict antidepressant effects on weaving. Thus, actual driving tests are essential to define potential hazards of the use of drugs for driving.
The paper, entitled "Antidepressants and driver impairment: Empirical evidence from a standard on-the-road test," can be found in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2003:64:20-29.
Widmark Laureate John Birrell has died at the age of 78. As Police Surgeon for the State of Victoria, Australia in the 1950s, he grew angry with the increasing number and severity of traffic fatalities and injuries. He aggressively promoted the fitting and wearing of seatbelts and worked tirelessly with the media on seatbelt promotion, influenced politicians and parliamentary road safety committees and spoke about road safety issues constantly to schools and community groups. The mandatory wearing of fitted seatbelts by drivers and front seat passengers became law in Victoria in 1971. He then turned his full attention to excessive blood-alcohol levels in drivers.
"Single-handed, he put drink-driving on the road safety agenda with his testing of autopsies in the morgue and his taking of blood alcohols in hospitals," says Professor Ian Johnson, of the Monash University Accident Research Centre. "Nobody saw there was a problem with drink-driving until John came along. He stood up to vested interests, car manufacturers and road organisations," says Mick Miller, Police officer for 40 years and former Chief Commissioner of Police.
In 1974, without the financial support of government or other alcohol and safety bodies, John Birrell went to Toronto to the 6th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety. He won the right to hold the 7th International Conference in Melbourne in January 1977. The event was an outstanding success with John as president. It was attended by 400 delegates who heard 100 scientific papers presented on the eve of his retirement as Police Surgeon.
Dr. Birrell's citation upon receiving the Widmark Award at the 1986 ICADTS conference, recognized his "outstanding contributions to the advancement in Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety". Dr Donald Hossack, consulting surgeon to the city coroner spokesman for the Road Trauma Committee of the College of Surgeons recalled: "John was a lone voice for a long time on road-safety issues. His pioneering work in the driver blood alcohol field set the scene, inspiring me and others of our committee to focus on excessive drinking, particularly the compulsory taking of blood samples of injured road crash victims in hospitals. Data from these tests was a key factor in the introduction of booze buses in 1990." (Source: The Melbourne Age, April 4, 2003)
The Higher Education Center offers resources on reducing drug and alcohol problems, including impaired driving, on college campuses through environmental management. Most prevention services on campuses emphasize individual students' knowledge and behavior. A more effective approach is to complement these efforts by addressing the physical, social, economic, and legal environment in which students make decisions about alcohol and other drug use. The strategies for environmental management include:
For more information on environmental management and other approaches to alcohol and drug abuse prevention on college campuses, see the Higher Education Center website at www.edc.org/hec.
A new sourcebook is available from the Century Council as part of their National Hardcore Drunk Driver Project. It is designed to provide a single, comprehensive resource that can help state legislators and local policymakers, highway safety officials, law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors, community advocates, and treatment professionals deal effectively with hardcore drunk drivers. The ultimate goal is to help reduce the number of fatalities, injuries, and damages that result from the irresponsible behavior of this small segment of the driving public.
Culling information from recent research, professionals in the fields of alcohol abuse and traffic safety, and a new state-by-state survey, this sourcebook serves as a guide to a broad range of administrative policies, laws, sanctions, and treatment programs that address hardcore drunk drivers. While many of the techniques and practices presented here can be applied to all drunk drivers, this document focuses on how those approaches can be most useful in dealing with hardcore drunk drivers. To view the report online, visit: www.dwidata.org.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in partnership with Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America has published a guidebook for communities that wish to take action against impaired driving. It provides basic facts on impaired driving, ways of integrating impaired driving into ongoing prevention efforts, and information about other resources available. The document includes chapters on needs assessment, strategies that can help communities make progress, and evaluation techniques, It also includes tools such as sample press releases and letters to the editor. To view the guidebook, go to NHTSA's website: www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/alcohol/IDPToolKit/IDP_index.html.
July 29-31, 2003
15th Annual Smposium on Alcohol and Drug Enforcement Enforcement - Orlando, Florida, USA
For information, or to register for the conference, contact the Institute of Police Technology and Management at Tel: 904-620-4786, or visit the IPTM web site: www.iptm.org
September 14-17, 2003
Congress of the International Traffic Medicine Association - Budapest, Hungary
For information, contact the ITMA 2003 Congress, at the websites: www.itma2003.hu, or www.trafficmedicine.org
September 22-27, 2003
3rd European Academy of Forensic Science Meeting - Istanbul, Turkey
Contact the EAFS 2003 Secretariat at, Tel: +90 212 287 58 00, Email: eafs2003@enfsi.org
October 2-3, 2003
3rd Symposium on Workplace Drug Testing - Barcelona, Spain
For information, contact Cesar Frenandez at email: contact@toxscreen.com, website: www.ewdts.org
October 28, 2003
4th Annual Ignition Interlock Symposium - Hilton Head, South Carolina
For information and to register, visit the Traffic Injury Research Foundation website: www.ignitioninterlocksymposium.com
December 7-12, 2003
The Robert F. Borkenstein Course on Alcohol, Drugs and Highway Safety: Testing, Research and Litigation - Bloomington, Indiana USA
Contact the Center for Studies of Law in Action, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 302, Bloomington, IN 47404, Tel: 812-855-1783, Fax: 812-855-7542, Email: dlindsay@indiana.edu
August 8-13, 2004
17th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety, T2004 - Glasgow, United Kingdom
For information contact Meeting Makers, 76 Southbrae Drive, Glasgow G13 1PP, Scotland, U.K., Tel: 44-141-434-1500, Fax: 44-141-434-1519,Email: icadts2004@meetingmakers.co.uk, or visit the conference websight: www.ICADTS2004.com