The Public’s Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Drinking and Driving, Highlights From the 1991, 1993, and 1995 National Surveys
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Summary
This report summarizes findings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) biennial national surveys conducted in 1991, 1993, and 1995. The primary objective of these surveys is to assess changes in American public attitudes and behaviors regarding drinking and driving, thereby measuring the scope of the problem and guiding program activities aimed at reducing its severity. The surveys covered key topic areas including the frequency of driving after drinking, riding with impaired drivers, strategies used to avoid impaired driving, and public views on enforcement. The 1995 survey additionally included items assessing knowledge of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limits, the quantity of alcohol required to reach those limits, and personal crash and injury experiences. The data reveals a positive trend in risk reduction behaviors. Between 1991 and 1995, the proportion of the driving-age public reporting they had driven within two hours of consuming alcohol declined from 28 percent to 24 percent. Similarly, the percentage of individuals who reported riding with a driver they believed had consumed too much alcohol to drive safely dropped from 15 percent to 11 percent over the same period. Regarding crash experiences, 3 percent of respondents reported being involved in a crash as a passenger in the past year, with 36 percent of those crashes resulting in injury. Approximately 6 percent of crashes involved drivers who had consumed alcohol prior to the incident, with male drivers being ten times more likely than females to have consumed alcohol before a crash. Public attitudes indicate strong support for strict standards and enforcement measures. Approximately two-thirds of the driving public believe a designated driver should consume zero alcoholic beverages, although 30 percent considered one or more drinks acceptable. There is significant backing for increased enforcement; over two-thirds of participants favored the use of more sobriety checkpoints, with about one-third reporting they had seen a checkpoint in operation in the past year. Furthermore, 86 percent of respondents considered it very important to take action to reduce drinking and driving, and 46 percent advocated for much more severe penalties. The report concludes that while progress has been made in reducing the prevalence of high-risk drinking and driving behaviors, the issue remains a serious public safety concern. NHTSA intends to continue tracking these attitudes and behaviors in subsequent biennial surveys, such as the 1997 survey, to monitor ongoing trends. The data sets from the 1991, 1993, and 1995 surveys are available through the National Technical Information Service, providing a resource for further analysis of these longitudinal trends in public safety behavior.
Key finding
Self-reported driving after drinking fell from 28 percent of the driving-age public in 1991 to 24 percent in 1995, and riding with a suspected impaired driver dropped from 15 to 11 percent.
Methodology
survey
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- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence