The agencies and organizations below have more information on impaired driving and links to numerous other resources.
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
- Drunk Driving – www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving
- Drugged Driving – www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drug-impaired-driving
- Risky Driving – www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving
- Behavioral Safety Research Reports – https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
- Office of National Drug Control Policy: www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/
- American Automobile Association: https://duijusticelink.aaa.com/for-the-public
- Governors Highway Safety Association: www.ghsa.org/issues/alcohol-impaired-driving
- International Association of Chiefs of Police: www.theiacp.org/
- Insurance Institute for Highway Safety: www.iihs.org/topics/alcohol-and-drugs
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving: www.madd.org
- National Conference of State Legislatures: www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/drunken-impaired-driving
- National Safety Council: www.nsc.org/safety_road/DriverSafety/Pages/ImpairedDriving.aspx
- National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism: www.niaaa.nih.gov
- National Institute on Drug Abuse: www.drugabuse.gov
- Traffic Injury Research Foundation: www.tirf.ca
For overviews of alcohol-impaired-driving prevalence, risks, legislation, research, and recommended strategies, see the following.
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:
- Alcohol and Highway Safety 2006: A Review of the State of Knowledge (Voas & Lacey, 2011)
- Compendium of Traffic Safety Research Projects 1985-2013 (Agimi et al., 2014)
- Digest of Impaired Driving and Selected Beverage Control Laws (NHTSA, 2017)
- National Cooperative Highway Research Program: A Guide for Reducing Alcohol-Related Collisions (Stutts et al., 2005)
- National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL): Alcohol Impaired and Drunken Driving webpage: www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/drunken-impaired-driving.aspx
- Transportation Research Board’s Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Transportation Committee’s e-Circular (TRB, 2013)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.thecommunityguide.org
For information on the prevalence, State laws, known risks, and current strategies against drug-impaired driving, see the following.
- Impact of the Legalization and Decriminalization of Marijuana on the DWI System (NHTSA, GHSA, & Volpe National Transportation Center, 2017) from NHTSA, GHSA, and Volpe
- Marijuana-Impaired Driving: A Report to Congress (Compton, 2017) from NHTSA
- 2016 Digest of State Laws: Driving Under the Influence of Drugs, 1st Edition (Boddie & O’Brien, 2018) from GHSA and NHTSA
Key terms
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- BAC: blood alcohol concentration in the body, expressed in grams of alcohol per deciliter (g/dL) of blood, usually measured with a breath or blood test
- BrAC: breath alcohol concentration (breath tests use a different measuring scale from blood tests, but are often “converted” to BAC terminology, such as “.08” or “.08 g/dL”
- DUID: driving under the influence of drugs
- DRE: drug recognition expert, a law enforcement officer trained in identifying drivers who are drug-impaired
- DWI: the offense of driving while impaired by alcohol or drugs. In different States the offense may be called driving while intoxicated, driving under the influence (DUI), or other similar terms
- Ignition interlock: a breathalyzer installed into a vehicle that prevents the vehicle from being started if the driver’s BrAC is above a specified limit
- Illegal per se law: A law that makes it an offense to operate a motor vehicle with a BAC at or above a specified level, and/or under the influence of drugs
- MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving
- PAS: passive alcohol sensor, a device to detect alcohol presence in the air near a driver’s face, used to estimate whether the driver has been drinking
- PBT: preliminary breath test device, a small handheld alcohol sensor used to estimate or measure a driver’s BrAC
- SFST: Standardized Field Sobriety Test, a battery of three tests (one-leg stand, walk- and-turn, and horizontal gaze nystagmus) used by law enforcement at the roadside to estimate whether a driver is at or above the illegal limit of .08 g/dL BAC
- THC: delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive constituent in cannabis. The THC metabolite, hydroxy-THC, is also psychoactive.