The Steering Clear First Offender Drink Driving Program

This program is a research based, guided intervention program, designed for first time drink driving offenders which provides them with information and strategies to avoid drink driving in the future. It is an innovative program with the ability to tailor specific information to different individuals based on their level of risk of reoffending and help them develop their own plan to prevent them from drink driving. It aims to teach offenders the skills to implement their own plan when they determine they are at risk of future drink driving. The program provides information about: What a standard drink is and how blood alcohol content (BAC) is determined; How alcohol affects the body, reaction time, and decision making; The consequences of drink driving and what happens after a second offence; How to deal with risky drink driving situations in the future; How to build a personalised plan to avoid drink driving in the future, and; Levels of alcohol consumption and its impact on daily life. It also includes access to a mobile friendly web app that can be used anytime after completing the program. This is tool that will aid offenders in tracking their drinks and build on plans to prevent future drink driving.

Young driver perceptions of police traffic enforcement and self reported driving offences

Purpose Road policing is a key method used to improve driver compliance with road laws. However, we have a very limited understanding of the perceptions of young drivers regarding police enforcement of road laws. This paper addresses this gap. Design/Methodology/Approach Within this study 238 young drivers from Queensland, Australia, aged 17-24 years (M = 18, SD = 1.54), with a provisional (intermediate) driver’s licence completed an online survey regarding their perceptions of police enforcement and their driver thrill seeking tendencies. This study considered whether these factors influenced self-reported transient (e.g., travelling speed) and fixed (e.g., blood alcohol concentration) road violations by the young drivers. Findings The results indicate that being detected by police for a traffic offence, and the frequency with which they display P-plates on their vehicle to indicate their licence status, are associated with both self-reported transient and fixed rule violations. Licence type, police avoidance behaviours and driver thrill seeking affected transient rule violations only, while perceptions of police enforcement affected fixed rule violations only. Practical implications This study suggests that police enforcement of young driver violations of traffic laws may not be as effective as expected and that we need to improve the way in which police enforce road laws for young novice drivers. Originality/value: This paper identifies that perceptions of police enforcement by young drivers does not influence all types of road offences.

Quantifying Time Awake Posturographically

This thesis focuses on the issue of testing sleepiness quantitatively. The issue is relevant to policymakers concerned with traffic- and occupational safety; such testing provides a tool for safety legislation and -surveillance. The findings of this thesis provide guidelines for a posturographic sleepiness tester. Sleepiness ensuing from staying awake merely 17 h impairs our performance as much as the legally proscribed blood alcohol concentration 0.5 does. Hence, sleepiness is a major risk factor in transportation and occupational accidents. The lack of convenient, commercial sleepiness tests precludes testing impending sleepiness levels contrary to simply breath testing for alcohol intoxication. Posturography is a potential sleepiness test, since clinical diurnal balance testing suggests the hypothesis that time awake could be posturographically estimable. Relying on this hypothesis this thesis examines posturographic sleepiness testing for instrumentation purposes. Empirical results from 63 subjects for whom we tested balance with a force platform during wakefulness for maximum 36 h show that sustained wakefulness impairs balance. The results show that time awake is posturographically estimable with 88% accuracy and 97% precision which validates our hypothesis. Results also show that balance scores tested at 13:30 hours serve as a threshold to detect excessive sleepiness. Analytical results show that the test length has a marked effect on estimation accuracy: 18 s tests suffice to identify sleepiness related balance changes, but trades off some of the accuracy achieved with 30 s tests. The procedure to estimate time awake relies on equating the subject s test score to a reference table (comprising balance scores tested during sustained wakefulness, regressed against time awake). Empirical results showed that sustained wakefulness explains 60% of the diurnal balance variations, whereas the time of day explains 40% of the balance variations. The latter fact implies that time awake estimations also must rely on knowing the local times of both test and reference scores.

Arrested Drunk Drivers : Trends, social background, recidivism and mortality

The aim of this study was to examine the trends, incidence and recidivism of drunken driving during a 20-year period (1988 - 2007) using the data on all suspected drunken driving in this period. Furthermore, the association between social background and drunken driving, and the mortality of drunk drivers were studied by using administrative register data provided by Statistics Finland. The study was completely register-based. In 1989 - 1991, every year 30,000 drivers were suspected of drunken driving, but the number fell to less than 20,000 by 1994, during the economic recession. The changes in the arrest incidence of the youngest age groups were especially pronounced, most of all in the age group of 18 - 19-year olds. Even though the incidence among youth decreased dramatically, their incidence rate was still twice that of the general population aged 15 - 84 years. Drunken driving was associated with a poor social background among youth and working-aged men and women. For example, a low level of education, unemployment, divorce, and parental factors in youth were associated with a higher risk of being arrested for drunken driving. While a low income was related to more drunken driving among working-aged people, the effect among young persons was the opposite. Every third drunk driver got rearrested during a 15-year period, whereas the estimated rearrest rate was 44%. Findings of drugs only or in combination with alcohol increased the risk of rearrest. The highest rearrest rates were seen among drivers who were under the influence of amphetamines or cannabis. Also male gender, young age, high blood alcohol concentration, and arrest during weekdays and in the daytime predicted rearrest. When compared to the general population, arrested drunk drivers had significant excess mortality. The greatest relative differences were seen in alcohol-related causes of death (including alcohol diseases and alcohol poisoning), accidents, suicides and violence. Also mortality due to other than alcohol-related diseases was elevated among drunk drivers. Drunken driving was associated with multiple factors linked to traffic safety, health and social problems. Social marginalization may expose a person to harmful use of alcohol and drunken driving, and the associations are seen already among the youth. Recidivism is common among drunk drivers, and driving under the influence of illicit and/or medicinal drugs is likely to indicate worse substance abuse problems, judging from the high rearrest rates. High alcohol-related mortality in this population shows that drunken driving is clearly an indicator of alcohol abuse. More effective measures of preventing alcohol-related harms are needed, than merely preventing convicted drunk drivers from driving again.

Alcoolemia em vítimas fatais de acidentes de trânsito no Rio Grande do Norte empregando cromatografia em fase gasosa - head space

Alcohol is one of the few psychotropic drugs that their consumption has admitted legally and sometimes encouraged by the society. Studies show alcohol as the highest consumption of drugs among young people and society in general, probably because of its availability and easy access. The abuse causes public health problems, which was closely related to the violence, socioeconomic problems and the high number of automobile accidents. Transit is one of the main sectors affected by the effects of alcohol, observing a high incidence in the studies. About half of automobile accidents occurs after the consumption of alcoholic beverage, and the vast majority of cases related to high concentrations of alcohol in the bloodstream. The relationship of drunk with traffic accidents is in fact evident everywhere in the world, including Brazil, where studies have shown a high relationship between alcohol consumption and traffic accidents. This study determined the alcohol in fatal victims of traffic accidents in the state of Rio Grande do Norte and established the profile of this population compared with those found in Brazil and other countries. Samples of blood of ethanol added to fulfillment of the standardization of chromatographic conditions and procedures for the analysis, being employed in the determination of alcohol in blood samples of 277 victims of traffic accidents, collected at the Institute of Scientific Technical Police of Rio Grande do North (ITEP) in the year 2007. The blood alcohol level was determined in these samples correlated with the sex, age and marital status of the victim and the location, day of week and month when the accident occurred, is doing a statistical analysis and outlining a profile of the victims of an accident at transit in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. The parameters of standardization studied ensured the quality of the analytical method and, consequently, to obtain reliable laboratory results. Being given the best temperature for injector (150 ºC), detector (250 ºC) and column (50 ºC) with a flow of gas in the column of 2mL/minutos and analysis of time of 12 minutes. The method was linear in the range of 0.01 to 3.2 g / L (r2 = 0.9989) with average recovery of 100.2% and precision with coefficient of variation less than 15%. The analysis carried out on victims of fatal road traffic accidents, ethanol detected in the blood in 66.43% of the victims and these, 96% showed concentration ≥ 0.2 g / L, 87.73% of victims were male, while 12.27% female. The younger age group (1535 years) was the most involved (52,35%) and most single (55.60%). The accidents occurred with greater prevalence in the day on Monday (27%) followed by Sunday (24,19%) and Saturday (15,52%) and it was found that the prevalence of injuries varied between the different months of the year, and in February (14.4%) and April (10.47%) the months that had a higher number of accidents, however this oscillation showed no statistically significant difference. Also no significant difference was observed between the tracks of concentration found in men and women. The standardized method showed to be efficient, given satisfactorily to the goals of this work, and the high levels of alcohol found in victims of fatal road traffic accidents are consistent with several studies of literature, and the profile of the victim also supported by presenting in its most young adults, male and single

Analytical study of the legal and operational aspects of the Minnesota law entitled "Chemical test for intoxication" - M.S.A. Sec. 169.123. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Report on a national study of Preliminary Breath Test (PBT) and Illegal Per Se laws; effectiveness of PBT and IPS laws. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Reducing highway crashes through administrative license revocation.

Mode of access: Internet.

Administrative per se -- a summary of state forms and procedures.

Mode of access: Internet.

Evaluation and system description of ASAP judicial systems. Volume III: Idaho case study. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

A preliminary assessment of the impact of lowering the illegal per se limit to 0.08 in five states.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Experimental evaluation of sobriety checkpoint programs. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

Sobering agent: effectiveness measurement and development. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

An analysis of ASAP impact on the judicial system. SD:ASAP analytic study no. 4 - 1976. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Driver and Pedestrian Programs, Washington, D.C.

A survey of public attitudes toward the S.D. ASAP: baseline period (1971).

Alcohol Safety Action Project--South Dakota, Pierre