Sixteen states have reduced the per se illegal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit for drivers to 0.08%. There is a substantial amount of evidence from experimental studies to indicate that a variety of individual skills are impaired at BACs well below 0.08%. Epidemiologic studies indicate that the risk of a crash increases sharply for drivers with BACs above 0.08%. To date, however, few studies have been done to determine whether reducing the legal BAC limit translates into reduced numbers of alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes. To determine whether the 0.08% law produced a decrease in alcohol-related crashes, we examined several indicators. Alcohol involvement in all crashes in North Carolina between 1991 and 1995, as well as fatal and serious injury crashes only were examined. In addition, surrogate measures of alcohol-related crashes (nighttime crashes; nighttime fatal and serious injury crashes) were also examined. All these measures have been declining, almost continuously, in North Carolina since the early 1980s.
Evaluation of the Effects of North Carolina's 0.08% BAC Law
1998
43 pages
Report
No indication
English
Evaluation of the effects of North Carolina's 0.08% BAC law
Online Contents | 2001
|Rebuilding North Carolina's "floating road,"
Engineering Index Backfile | 1945
|North Carolina's Ecosystem Enhancement Program
Transportation Research Record | 2005
|An evaluation of North Carolina's occupant restraint law
Automotive engineering | 1987
|North Carolina's southbound railway enterprise
Engineering Index Backfile | 1910
|