NCJ Number
101546
Date Published
1984
Length
64 pages
Annotation
A review of recent national and international efforts to control drunk driving suggests that general deterrence programs, emphasizing increased probability of arrest and punishment, offer the most promising approach to the short-term reduction of alcohol-related traffic injuries and deaths.
Abstract
Studies of sobriety checkpoint programs conducted in Australia, France, Canada, and Sweden between 1975 and 1978 provide evidence that such programs can increase public perceptions of risk and decrease drunk driving and highway fatalities and injuries. In Delaware and Maryland, institution of checkpoint programs in 1982 and 1981 resulted in reductions in alcohol-related accidents (32 and 17 percent decreases, respectively). Enactment of administrative license revocation laws in 1977 in Minnesota and in 1982 in Iowa resulted in greatly increased revocations, with almost all arrests resulting in revocation. Similar results were found in Delaware and the District of Columbia. Finally, the 1983 implementation of a combined checkpoint-revocation approach in Delaware resulted in higher driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) arrest rates and license revocations in 96 percent of DWI arrests. Appendixes include recommendations for raising the drinking age to 21 and for citizen crime reporting, a resolution endorsing sobriety checkpoints, and a model administrative revocation law. Tables.