Advancing Drugged Driving Data at the State Level: State-by-State Assessment
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Summary
This 2018 report by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety addresses the critical gap in data regarding drugged driving in the United States. Motivated by National Roadside Survey findings indicating that over 22% of weekend drivers tested positive for drugs other than alcohol, the study aimed to assess how well state laws, policies, and practices aligned with twelve expert panel recommendations designed to improve drugged driving data collection. The primary objective was to document the current status of these measures across all 50 states and the District of Columbia to identify barriers and areas for improvement. The researchers employed a mixed-methods approach involving legal research and surveys. Legal research utilized secondary sources and original searches via Westlaw to analyze state statutes regarding implied consent, specimen collection, testing mandates for crash survivors, and insurance laws. To capture policy and practice details not always codified in law, the team conducted interviews and distributed online surveys to key officials from state highway safety offices, law enforcement, and courts. Data from 77 completed responses (16 telephone interviews and 58 online surveys) were synthesized and coded against the twelve recommendations. The findings reveal significant variability and incomplete implementation across states. While 37 states reported that at least two-thirds of law enforcement officers (LEOs) are trained in Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFST), training in drug-specific curricula like “Drugs That Impair Driving” or ARIDE remains low, with only 13 and 17 states, respectively, reporting that over 20% of LEOs have received such training. Regarding testing, 47 states extend implied consent laws to drugs other than alcohol, and 39 states mandate testing for fatally injured drivers. However, only 15 states authorize oral fluid collection for drug testing, and most states only test surviving drivers in fatal crashes when probable cause exists. Furthermore, 34 states distinguish between alcohol and drug DUIs in reporting systems, though only two have laws mandating this distinction. Electronic warrants, which reduce specimen collection delays, are not expressly authorized in the majority of states. The study concludes that while substantial progress has been made in SFST training and implied consent laws, significant gaps remain in drug-specific training, routine testing of surviving drivers, and the use of advanced detection technologies like oral fluid screening. The authors note that inconsistent data collection hinders the ability to accurately measure the extent of drugged driving and evaluate countermeasures. The report serves as a reference for advocates and policymakers, highlighting the need for states to adopt the remaining recommendations to enhance the consistency, comparability, and availability of drugged driving data.
Key finding
Most U.S. states have not implemented a majority of the 12 expert-panel recommendations for improving drugged-driving data, with substantial cross-state variation and persistent gaps in drug-specific LEO training, routine crash testing, and electronic-warrant infrastructure.
Methodology
mixed_methods
Provenance
The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_aaa_foundation on 2026-05-23 (5 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | aaa_foundation | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
| archive | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| clean | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| chunk | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-01 |
| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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Information type
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- Applied Guidance: policy recommendations
- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence
- Methodological Resource: dataset resource