What to do?
Several measures are available for governments who want to take concrete actions to counter drink-driving. For instance:
Why do it?
Road traffic crashes are a major source of injury, disability and death throughout the world and road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death among people aged 15-29 years. Road users who are impaired by alcohol have a significantly higher risk of being involved in a crash. Driving under the influence of alcohol, or drink-driving, is a key risk factor for 27% of all road injuries. Thus, drink-driving is a significant public health problem that affects not only the alcohol user but also, in many cases, innocent parties such as passengers and pedestrians. Even at low blood-alcohol levels, drivers experience problems with concentration, coordination and identification of risks in the road environment. In addition, at a given blood-alcohol level, drink–driving crashes can be more severe or more common when high speed or poor road design are involved. Drink- driving laws and BAC limits have been assessed as effective interventions for NCD prevention.
How to do it?
An effective road safety transport policy should be in place to address drink–driving, together with road safety measures to reduce the severity and risk of drink–driving crashes. Such measures might, for instance, address infrastructure and speed limits.
Legislation should stipulate upper BAC limits for drivers at a maximum of≤ 0.05 g/dL or lower for the general population, and at 0.02 g/dL or lower for novice and commercial drivers.
Legislation should specify the penalties for violation of such limits, allow for roadside testing (typically of breath) with approved and calibrated equipment, make it an offence for drivers to refuse a roadside breath test, and allow test results to be used as evidence in court. Penalties should include a combination of administrative sanctions (e.g. driving licence suspension) and criminal ones (e.g. mandatory minimum fines) of adequate severity.
BAC limits are most effective when enforcement is consistent and highly visible, when detection of violation results in penalties that are certain, swift and sufficiently severe, and when supported by effective public education campaigns.
The enforcement of drink-driving laws must be accompanied by strong public awareness campaigns, using mass media and other strategiccommunications, on the risks of drink-driving and the presence of enforcement activities.
Effective enforcement of drink–driving laws requires a significant amount of police time for conducting and processing random breath-testing activities and sobriety checkpoints, and resources are required in the judicial system to process cases. Resources are also needed to pay for breath-testing equipment. It is important that the police and judicial system have adequate resources for effective enforcement. The fines collected could be used to finance police activity.
High BAC levels and repeated drink–driving can be both a sign and a symptom of alcohol use disorders. Resources need to be available for identifying cases and making treatment available for them.
Whom to work with?
The key stakeholders for reducing drink–driving accidents are the police; they are responsible for enforcing drink–driving laws and for generally stepping up drink–driving countermeasures. Such countermeasures require adequate resources.
Another important stakeholder is the department of transportation, which typically has responsibility for implementing drink–driving laws and other policies to improve road safety and health, and which often has expertise in communication to promote behaviour change.
Persons who serve alcoholic beverages are also stakeholders to the extent that they should be responsible for not serving excess alcohol to drivers.
Alternative transportation (public and private) should be available. Mass media campaigns and police enforcement should not be limited to specific holidays since drink-driving behaviour occurs throughout the year. However, during holiday periods the frequency of enforcement and the visibility of media campaigns can be increased.
