Alcohol availability, measured in terms of geographic density of alcohol­sales outlets, is linked to specific patterns of alcohol­related motor vehicle crashes in communities. To curb alcohol­related problems such as violence, traffic crashes, and drinking and driving, community advocates often focus on reducing alcohol availability through modifications of zoning laws and licensing requirement...

AIMS To evaluate a new method being used by some states for motivating interlock installation by requiring it as a prerequisite to reinstatement of the driver's license. DESIGN The driving records of Florida DWI offenders convicted between July 2002 and June 2008 were analyzed to determine the proportion of offenders subject to the interlock requirement who installed interlocks. SETTING Mos...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of our study was to better characterize and evaluate drunk driving for governmental reference in order to further reduce alcohol-impaired driving. METHOD This article reports the characteristics of 1226 alcohol-positive drivers with blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or over the legal limit of 0.20 mg/mL involved in nonfatal traffic accidents in Shanghai, China, from...

We show that termination of a class of linear loop programs is decidable. Linear loop programs are discrete-time linear systems with a loop condition governing termination, that is, a while loop with linear assignments. We relate the termination of such a simple loop, on all initial values, to the eigenvectors corresponding to only the positive real eigenvalues of the matrix defining the loop a...

This study developed a scale to measure 502 Taiwan traffic police officers' perceived ability to detect, detain, and intercept those vehicles whose drivers are driving while intoxicated (DWI) when conducting sobriety checkpoints. Through factor analysis, the officers' enforcement ability was found to consist of two component latent traits: detecting ability (DA) and detaining and intercepting a...

OBJECTIVE Sobriety checkpoints are an effective deterrent to alcohol-impaired driving although a substantial proportion of drinking drivers who pass through checkpoints are missed. The present study was designed to determine the extent to which police officers correctly identify individuals with blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) at or above 0.05% at checkpoints, and if there are characteristi...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of exposure to others' drink driving during adolescence on self-reported driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol in young adulthood. Data were drawn from 1956 participants with a driving license enrolled in the International Youth Development Study from Victoria, Australia. During 2003 and 2004, adolescents in Grades 7, 9 and 10 (a...

The most fundamental law of economics links the price of a product to the demand for that product. Accordingly, increases in the monetary price of alcohol (i.e., through tax increases) would be expected to lower alcohol consumption and its adverse consequences. Studies investigating such a relationship found that alcohol prices were one factor influencing alcohol consumption among youth and you...

AIMS To measure the effectiveness of a high-visibility enforcement campaign to reduce rates of underage drinking and driving. DESIGN Mixed-model analysis compares rates of drinking and driving (1) between the baseline and intervention period and (2) between the baseline and follow-up period. The impact of the intervention was evaluated using roadside surveys and web surveys. SETTING Two col...

375 Alcohol-impaired driving is a major public health problem in the United States. Traffic crashes involving alcohol killed more than 16,000 people in 1997 alone (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA] 1998b) and injure a million more each year (Blincoe 1996). Fatal traffic crashes, the leading cause of death for those aged 1 through 24, involve alcohol 4 times out of 10 (NHTSA...