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The Role of State Alcohol Policies in Association with Alcohol-Related Motor Vehicle Collisions :

February 13, 2017

Recognizing that motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) represent one of the leading causes of adolescent deaths in the US, it is no wonder that there are statewide policies designed to curtail the prevalence of drinking while driving. These policies are at the state and not federal level, there is significant variation across the country. 

Recognizing that motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) represent one of the leading causes of adolescent deaths in the US, it is no wonder that there are statewide policies designed to curtail the prevalence of drinking while driving. These policies are at the state and not federal level, there is significant variation across the country.  The question is: does a stricter alcohol usage policy for driving under the influence mean that there are less MVCs when those laws are enacted?  Hadland et al. (10.1542/peds.2016-3037) opted to look into this question by using a rating scale of just how restrictive a state alcohol policy for driving and drinking can be and then compared their restrictive score with the number of crash fatalities in teens and young adults less than 20 years of age killed when at least one driver in the accident was intoxicated.  Sadly, over the period of study (2000-2013) involving a total of close to 85,000 MVCs, just over a quarter of the fatal MVCs were alcohol-related and were associated just shy of 50% of the time with deaths of drivers (46.3%), and similarly passengers (43.0%), and with a smaller percentage pedestrians and cyclists (10.7%).  The better news is that the more restrictive the alcohol policy, the fewer the fatalities. While one cannot attribute causality to the findings in this study, one would certainly like to look further at whether tightening the restrictions in states with higher rates of MVCs would make a difference.  To find out which states have the more restrictive policies and how your state did if it was one of those included in this project, read this sobering study and learn more.

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