A follow up sample of first time drink driving offenders: how many drink drive post offence?

Most of the research on drink driving to date has focused on the hard core offenders - those with high blood alcohol content at the time of arrest, and those who have more than one offence. There has been little research on differences within the first offender population or on factors contributing to second offences. This research aims to fill the gap by reporting on those factors in a sample of offenders. This paper reports on a study that involved interviewing 198 first offenders in court and following up this group 6-8 months post offence. Of these original participants, 101 offenders were able to be followed up, with 88 included in this paper on the basis that they had driven a vehicle since the offence. Interestingly, while the rate of reported apprehended second offences was low in that time frame (3 per cent), a surprising number of offenders reported that they had driven under the influence at a much higher rate (27 per cent). That is a large proportion of first offenders were willing to risk the much larger penalties associated with a second offence in order to engage in drink driving. Key characteristics of this follow up group are examined to inform the development of an evidence based brief intervention program that targets first time offenders with the goal of decreasing the rate of repeat drink driving.

• Record URL:
  http://www.icadtsinternational.com/files/documents/2013_136.pdf
• 
• Authors:
  • Wilson, H
  • Sheehan, M
  • Palk, G
• Conference:
  • International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (T2013), 20th, 2013, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
• Publication Date: 2013-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Pagination: 812-7
• Monograph Title: 20th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety Conference Proceedings, 25-28 August 2013, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, Brisbane, Australia

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data collection; Drivers; Drunk driving; Human characteristics; Intoxication; Offenders; Risk taking
• Uncontrolled Terms: Interviews; Safe systems (road users)
• Geographic Terms: Australia; Queensland
• ATRI Terms: Drink driving; Driver characteristics; Interview; Offender; Risk taking
• Subject Areas: Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01500821
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: ARRB
• Files: ITRD, ATRI
• Created Date: Dec 5 2013 8:50AM