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Countermeasures That Work Alcohol- and Drug-Impaired Driving

Resources


The agencies and organizations below have more information on impaired driving and links to numerous other resources.

  • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration:

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

    • 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.