Compendium of Traffic Safety Research Projects: 1987–1997

NHTSA · 1997 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This document is an annotated bibliography titled "Compendium of Traffic Safety Research Projects: 1987–1997," published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It serves as an updated reference guide to behavioral research and evaluation projects conducted by NHTSA’s Research and Evaluation Division over the preceding decade. The compendium addresses the role of human attitudes, behaviors, and failures in motor vehicle crashes, focusing on drivers, passengers, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists. Its primary purpose is to catalog completed and ongoing studies that identify crash-causing behaviors, develop countermeasures, and evaluate the effectiveness of legislation, enforcement, and public education initiatives. The document organizes research findings into ten major thematic areas, with detailed summaries provided for projects related to alcohol-impaired driving. The methodology involves a synthesis of various study types, including large-scale literature reviews, laboratory experiments, field tests, case-control studies, and evaluations of legislative impacts. For instance, the "National Roadside Breath Test Survey" utilized roadside testing to measure blood alcohol concentration (BAC) prevalence among drivers, while other projects employed experimental designs to assess the accuracy of detection technologies like passive alcohol sensors and evidentiary breath testers. Legislative evaluations often compared crash data and enforcement statistics before and after the implementation of specific laws, such as lowered BAC limits or administrative license suspensions. Key findings highlighted in the compendium demonstrate significant progress in reducing alcohol-impaired driving. A 1996 roadside survey indicated a substantial decrease in drivers with any alcohol in their system, dropping from 36.1% in 1973 to 16.9% in 1996. Research confirmed that impairment occurs at BAC levels as low as .02 or .03, supporting the conclusion that no "safe" limit exists other than zero. Evaluations of specific countermeasures showed that lowering the legal BAC limit to .08 in California reduced expected alcohol-related fatalities by 12%, and sobriety checkpoint programs effectively reduced alcohol-involved crashes compared to roving patrols. Conversely, studies found that community service sanctions were ineffective deterrents, whereas mandatory license suspensions and jail sanctions showed specific deterrent effects. The document also notes that while many innovative technologies and sanctions were developed, reliable data on their long-term effectiveness in reducing recidivism was often lacking. The significance of this compendium lies in its role as a comprehensive resource for policymakers, law enforcement, and safety advocates. By documenting the scientific basis for traffic safety interventions, it supports the adoption of evidence-based policies, such as .08 BAC laws and zero-tolerance measures for young drivers. The findings underscore the importance of combining enforcement with public information campaigns to enhance deterrence. Furthermore, the identification of gaps in current knowledge, such as the need for better target group identification and more robust data on sanction effectiveness, guides future research priorities in highway safety.

Key finding

The document is an administrative bibliography and does not present a single experimental result.

Methodology

dataset

Provenance

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Topics

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• dui enforcement
• regulatory evaluation
• driver education effectiveness
• seat belt use
• public messaging
• incidence prevalence

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
• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence, crash risk outcomes