Traffic fatalities in the United States increased in 1995. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that the number of fatalities in 1995 was estimated to have increased 1.9 percent to 41,465, compared to 40,676 in 1994. For the first time since 1987, the number of fatalities that were alcohol-related, did not show a decline. Preliminary figures show that 17,130 persons died in alcohol-related crashes in 1995, compared with 16,589 in 1994. The percentage of 1995 alcohol-related fatalities was unchanged from 1994 at 41 percent. However, the 41 percent figure is a major reduction from the 57 percent of the fatalites that were alcohol-related in 1982. (Source: Monthly Traffic Fatality Report, NHTSA, December 1995)
In 1994, there were 9,880 drink-drive accidents in Great Britain, in which 510 people died, 2,830 were seriously injured and 11,760 received slight injuries. Deaths declined from 540 in 1993. In providing provisional estimates, the Department of Transport (DOT) noted that the number of people killed or seriously injured in drink-drive accidents has fallen from 9,940 in 1979 to 3,340 in 1994, a fall of 66 percent. In that same period, deaths dropped from 1,640, a fall of 69 percent. In 1994, 14 percent of all road deaths occurred in drink-drive accidents. (Source: DOT Accident Fact Sheet, Series 3, No. 1)
A evaluation conducted by the California Department of Motor Vehicles showed a significant general deterrent effect associated with the implementation of the administrative per se (APS) law, with somewhat less support for such an effect associated with the 0.08% BAC per se limit law. The project evaluated the effects of the two new DUI laws implemented in California. The 0.08% BAC law was effective January 1, 1990, while the APS law went into effect on July 1, 1990. Larger proportions of the observed accident reductions were associated with the timing of the APS law than with the lowering of the illegal per se limit.
The effect of the APS legislation was associated with significant permanent reductions in each alcohol surrogate category for at least one, and sometimes more, of the accident severity levels assessed. Among the findings, there was an immediate 9.4 to 13.4% reduction in had been drinking (HBD) fatal and severe injury accidents, reflecting one-year estimated total decreases of between approximately 640 to 900 fewer such accidents than in the years preceding the new laws and an estimated 12.7% reduction in HBD fatal accidents, representing approximately 250 fewer fatal accidents, in the first year following the new laws. There was suggestive evidence that a media campaign targeted to four counties slightly enhanced the effectiveness of the APS law. Fatal and injury HBD accidents in these four counties declined significantly relative to the rest of the state following the campaign.
While there were reductions in some of the alcohol surrogate categories following the implementation of the 0.08% law, that legislation could not be linked to any significant decreases in direct alcohol-involved accident measures of HBD accidents or in fatal accidents alone. However, the following impact of the legislation included: an immediate 7.2% reduction in nighttime fatal and severe-injury accidents, reflecting a one-year estimated total decrease of approximately 500 such accidents following the new laws and an immediate 10.2% reduction in 2 to 3 a.m. fatal and severe-injury accidents and an immediate reduction of 15.6% in 2 to 3 a.m. fatal and severe-injury accidents for an estimated decrease of 518 fewer fatal and total-injury accidents and 130 fewer fatal and severe-injury accidents. (Source: California DMV Report: The General Deterrent Impact of California's 0.08% Blood Alcohol Concentration Limit and Administrative Per Se License Suspension Laws, Vol. 1, No. CAL-DMV-RSS-95-158, September 1995)
Throughout history and in all the world there have been only two landmark interventions for controlling drinking and driving through deterrence-based law. One was random breath testing in Australia; the other is the British Road Safety Act of 1967. No other legal interventions have comparable effects on the toll of deaths and injuries related to road crashes. The Australian story has been well told by Ross Homel, among others. Until the publication of Criminalizing the Drink-Driver, there was little scholarship on the British Intervention since publication of my evaluative monograph in 1973. I am pleased to say that this book is excellent in all respects.
Light reports the history of the attempt to criminalize drink-driving, culminating in the Road Safety Act, and of subsequent developments to the beginning of this decade. The work is not a social scientific evaluation -- we have had enough of that -- but a social and political history of the law.
Antecedents of drink-driving law in England appear as early as the eighteenth century, though obviously dealing with earlier means of transportation. It was not until 1925 that legislation prohibited being "drunk in charge" of a motor vehicle. Light expressed regret for the imprecision of this language and its connotation of unusually great inebriety. Although the words were removed in subsequent laws, the understanding that the problem was drunken driving persists in public and judicial opinion. Further mid-century legislation increased penalties but did not address the problems of imprecise definition and difficulties in presenting convincing evidence of the violation.
Further attention to the drink-driving problem arose partly as a consequence of growing research activity and knowledge (as symbolized by the formation of ICADTS and its international conferences, beginning in 1950). The publication of Borkenstein's Grand Rapids Study in 1964 greatly clarified the relationship between drinking, driving, and accidents and lent weight to demands for further controls. Following the example of Norway and Sweden, blood alcohol tests were admitted into evidence in Britain after 1962.
The Road Safety Act of 1967 was revolutionary in that it changed the definition of drink-driving. A limit of .08 percent BAC was enacted and testing was made compulsory under many circumstances. It did not grant police unfettered powers to stop and investigate motorists, unlike Australia's laws a quarter-century later. As it was, the impressive initial life-saving gains appeared to be evanescent.
The numbers of police breath tests have increased, to a half-million annually by 1991, and crash-related deaths (both alcohol-related and not) declined. (See a related article on more recent statistics.) The movement for random breath testing, however has not been successful in Britain. The law remains fundamentally unchanged since 1967, despite widespread disillusionment concerning its effectiveness. Reasons offered by Light for the failure of reform include a lack of confidence in the effects of the law, the failure of attempts to manipulate public attitudes, inconclusiveness of the research literature on which the law was based, inappropriateness of the drinking driver as a "suitable enemy," and dislike of further widening the criminal justice enterprise in Britain.
Perhaps more fundamental as a basis for concern about the criminal justice approach, in Britain and elsewhere, is the inattention to the institutional causes of drinking and driving. Light believes, and I agree, that the causes of the problem lie in accepted social institutions and that "a strategic approach to drink-driving would require radical official action on alcohol and/or transportation policy" (p.140). Perhaps one reason why government and the public appear loath fully to support the criminal justice approach to drinking and driving is the perception that "the criminal law can never solve what is in origin a public health and transportation problem" (p.156).
Criminalizing the Drink-Driver (Aldershot, England and Brookfield, Vermont: Dartmouth Publishing Co., LTD., 1994, 200 pages) should be read by policy-makers and scholars in all countries.
A video tape has just been released by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Law Enforcement Television Network entitled Sobriety Checkpoints. The tape describes a uniform and successful method to plan, conduct, and evaluate sobriety checkpoints. Sobriety checkpoints maximize the deterrent effect of impaired driving laws and increase the perception of risk of motorists who might operate a vehicle while impaired. The tape includes guidelines for ensuring that the checkpoints are used legally, effectively, and safely; it describes a model policy for the physical construction and operation of sobriety checkpoints; it includes a briefing guide for instructing all participating law enforcement personnel; and it provides a motorist survey questionnaire to enhance public information and education about checkpoints. Copies of the tape can be obtained from James Onder, Police Traffic Services, NHTSA, NTS-41, 400 Seventh Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590. Telephone: (202)366-9785. Fax: (202)366-7721.
The British Medical Association, jointly with the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Road Safety, has called for the blood alcohol limit to be reduced from .08 percent to .05 percent, a move which would bring Britain into line with the rest of Europe. A spokesperson said, "All the evidence suggest that reducing the alcohol limit would make a big difference to a number of fatalities and injuries." They also called for random breath testing. (Source: CADD, Newsletter 31, March 1966)
Drunk drivers who are taken to hospitals following a motor vehicle crash infrequently face criminal charges, a study published in the January issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine has found. Jeffrey W. Runge, M.D. of the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina analyzed data from 187 injured drivers taken to the hospital during a 15-month period. All of them had blood alcohol levels exceeding the legal limit for intoxication in North Carolina. The study found that only 28 percent of the drivers were charged with impaired driving. Of this group, 58 percent were convicted. Drivers who were severely injured were less likely to be charged. Patients with one or two previous convictions for drunk driving were more likely to be charged than were those who had never been convicted or those with three or more convictions. Nineteen of the patients had ten or more convictions. None of these drivers were charged with impaired driving.
The National commission Against Drunk Driving (along with The Century Council) has published a report on a conference entitled Selling Traffic Safety: Learning from Marketing and Advertising Experts. The conference released a major study carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health profiling the young adults who are most at risk for impaired driving and included exploration by marketing experts of how to reach the 21 to 34-year-old age group to change their drinking and driving behavior.
The Harvard study concluded that the most high risk subgroup is made up of predominantly white males in blue collar occupations with a high school education or less who most often drink beer. Many of these drivers are problem drinkers. The primary means of reducing drinking and driving by this group, short of extensive substance abuse treatment, is intervention by others at the scene, such as spouses or girlfriends.
In the second part of the report, marketing experts provided unique insights on communicating messages effectively to young adults. The experts concluded that friends are extremely important to this group and should be a part of efforts to change attitudes about drinking and driving. Scare tactics and negative messages may not work. Good venues for messages include worksites as well as places where this group tends to drink, such as sports bars.
For a copy of the report, contact the National Commission Against Drunk Driving, Fax: 202-223-7012.
A special session on medicinal drugs and motor vehicle crashes was conducted at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) in Washington, DC in January. The session was chaired by ICADTS Board Member Dr. Evelyn Vingilis. Each of the research papers were also presented by ICADTS members.
A significant but underreported cause of driver impairment is legal drugs, both prescription medications and over-the-counter remedies. Dr. Marcelline Burns, of the Southern California Research Institute, reported that there are three classes of drugs that are of particular concern: benzodiazepine drugs such as Valium; tricyclic antidepressants such as Elavil; and antihistamines such as Benadryl. All of these drugs impair driving to a certain extent, and in some cases the impairment is significant. Some drugs, such as the antihistamine Benadryl, are notorious for causing sleepiness. Non-impairing substitutes for some of these drugs are available, but many consumers and doctors are not fully informed about the impairing effects of these drugs and are not warned about driving after taking the drugs.
A study by Dr. James O'Hanlon of the Institute for Human Psychopharmacology at the University of Limburg, The Netherlands, reported on the impairment caused by benzodiazepine drugs, as measured in road tests. He found that the impairment caused by a dose of 5 mg of diazepam (Valium) three times a day was equivalent to a BAC of .10 percent. Other anti-anxiety drugs such as Lorazepam (Ativan) were even more incapacitating. The impairment caused by these drugs was highest in the first week of use, but even after three months of habituation the drug users had a crash risk two to three times higher than drivers who were not using drugs. ICADTS Treasurer, Dr. Johan de Gier, also of the Institute for Human Psychopharmacology, discussed required regulatory reform and the need for an effective patient warning system and Dr. Carl Soderstrom, of the University of Maryland Medical Center, reviewed his findings of medicinal drug involvement among drivers admitted to a regional trauma center. The TRB is planning to publish a Transportation Research Circular summarizing the above papers and those presented at seven other sessions covering the topic of alcohol, other drugs and transportation. (Source: TRB and AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety Progress Report, Vol. 3, No. 1)
The Australian Federal Office of Road Safety has published a report describing the implementation of a drink-driving prevention and rehabilitation model in a rural region of Queensland. The report was prepared by the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Queensland. The program model is based on the premise that drink-driving occurs within a particular social climate and can be reduced by manipulation of that context. The program, entitled "Under the Limit," involved a collaborative and dynamic model for change involving relevant stakeholders, including government and non-government agencies, major employers and unions, and driving school teachers. Hoteliers and other liquor outlet proprietors were involved and asked to install breath testing machines in their establishments.
The rehabilitative program is based on current understanding of drinking drivers and knowledge accumulated in psychotherapy and behavior modification. The report includes an outline of the rehabilitative program, including versions appropriate for remote areas and for aboriginal offenders. An evaluation is ongoing.
The report can be obtained from the Federal Office of Road Safety, GPO Box 594, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.
May 12-4, 1996
The Second Conference on Drugs, Alcohol and Impaired Driving-IACP DRE Training Conference - Aspen, Colorado, USA
Contact Chuck Peltier at 1-800-THE-IACP
May 12-17, 1996
Tests for BAC in Highway Safety Programs -- Supervision and Expert Testimony (Including an update on Workplace Testing) Bloomington, IN, USA
Contact Center for Studies of Law in Action, Indiana University, Sycamore Hall 302, Bloomington, IN 47405, Tel: 812-855-1783, Fax: 812-855-7542.
September 9-12, 1996
Road safety in Europe-An International Conference - Birmingham, United Kingdom
Contact David Lynam at TRl in the UK, Tel: 44-1344-773131, Fax: 44-1344-770356, or Dr. Kenneth Asp at VTI in Sweden, Tel: 46-1320-4000, Fax: 46-1312-6162.
October 7-9, 1996
40th Annual Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine - Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada
Contact AAAM at 2340 Des Plaines Avenue, Suite 106, Des Plaines, IL 60018, USA. Tel: 708-390-8927, Fax: 708-390-9962.
October 14-19, 1996
26th Anniversary Meeting of the Society of Forensic Toxicologists - Denver, Colorado, USA
Contact Laurel J. Farrell or Robert Zettl, Colorado Department of Public Heath and Environment, P.O. Box 17123, Denver, CO 80217, USA, Tel: 303-691-4727/4738.
October 16-18, 1996
52nd Annual National Traffic Court Seminar - Washington, D.C., USA
Contact Teddi Fangon at the American Bar Association at 541 North Fairbanks Court, Chicago, IL 60611, USA, Tel: 312-988-5693, Fax: 312-988-5709.
October 27-November 1, 1996
National Safety Council Congress and Exposition - Orlando, Florida, USA
Contact the National Safety Council, 1121 Spring Lake Drive, Itasca, IL 60143-3201, USA, Congress Hotline: 800-621-7619, Fax: 708-940-1175.
January 12-16, 1997
76th Annual Meeting of the U.S. Transportation Research Board - Washington, D.C., USA
Contact Dr. Richard Pain, Tel: 202-334-2960, Fax: 202-334-2003.
September 21-25, 1997
T'97 -- The 14th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety - Annecy, France
Contact T'97 Secretariat at CERMT, BP 132, 74004 Annecy Cedex, France, Tel: 33-50-45-36-23, Fax: 33-50-45-36-92.