Compendium of Traffic Safety Research Projects: 1985-1995 and Beyond
archive: archived pipeline: cataloged verified
Get this paper ↗ (full text — opens at the source; we link to it, we don't host it)
Summary
This document is an annotated bibliography and compendium of traffic safety research projects conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) Office of Program Development and Evaluation (OPDE) between 1985 and 1995. The primary purpose of the compendium is to catalog OPDE’s research activities focused on human attitudes, behaviors, and failures contributing to motor vehicle crashes. The research targets drivers, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists, aiming to identify crash-causing behaviors, develop countermeasures, and evaluate the effectiveness of legislation, enforcement, and public information programs. The compendium organizes research findings into several key domains, with a significant emphasis on alcohol-impaired driving. In the area of alcohol impairment, literature reviews established that driving-related skills are impaired at blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) as low as 0.02 or 0.03, concluding that no "safe" limit exists other than zero. Legislative evaluations demonstrated that lowering the legal BAC limit to 0.08 in California reduced expected alcohol-related fatalities by 12 percent, while Maryland’s 0.02 limit for youth drivers, coupled with publicity, substantially reduced alcohol-involved crashes among young drivers. Enforcement studies highlighted the efficacy of sobriety checkpoints; for instance, a program in Charlottesville reduced alcohol-related accidents by 13 percent, and a broader experimental evaluation confirmed that checkpoint programs reduced alcohol-involved crashes compared to roving patrols or control sites. However, the effectiveness of checkpoints did not vary significantly with staffing levels or deployment strategies within the tested ranges. Research on detection technologies yielded mixed results. Horizontal gaze nystagmus tests and passive alcohol sensors were identified as useful tools for identifying impaired drivers at checkpoints, whereas Alcoscan saliva-alcohol test strips were deemed unsatisfactory due to high variability and false positives. Conversely, a newer device by Enzymatics, Inc. showed promise for screening purposes. Adjudication studies found that court monitoring programs increased conviction rates and jail sentences for DWI offenders, while eliminating plea bargaining for DWI cases was feasible without disrupting court operations and led to more severe sanctions. Regarding countermeasures, mandatory license suspension in Wisconsin proved effective in reducing both recidivism and alcohol-related crashes, whereas community service sanctions in Baton Rouge showed little deterrent effect. The compendium also covers drug-impaired driving, occupant protection, speed enforcement, and safety issues related to pedestrian, bicyclist, older, and novice drivers, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific basis for highway safety policies during this decade.
Key finding
The document is an administrative bibliography and does not present a single primary research result.
Methodology
dataset
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_rosap on 2026-05-23 (45 acquisition events logged).
| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 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 | 42 | 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.
Topics
Ranked by relevance to this paper. Hover a topic for its definition.
- dui enforcement
- driver education effectiveness
- regulatory evaluation
- seat belt use
- public messaging
- drowsy as impairment
Information type
What kind of knowledge this paper contributes, grouped by family — independent of topic (what it is about) and method (how it was studied).
- Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation, policy recommendations
- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence