DRINKING AND DRIVING: SCANDINAVIAN LAWS, TOUGH PENALTIES AND UNITED STATES ALTERNATIVES

This paper reviews what is known of the effectiveness of U.S. and Scandinavian drinking driving laws with a view to making recommendations for the strengthening of this nation's programs. In making this review, the current paper owes much to the excellent summary of international deterrence programs by Ross. The basic conclusion--that there is evidence for the effectiveness of enforcement programs accompanied by public information activities which insure that there is a perception of increased probability of detection--is endorsed in this paper. An attempt has been made to more clearly analyze the nature of the enforcement procedures which produced the successful cases which Ross reviewed. The present paper proposes that rather than Ross' terms "Scandinavian" and "Traditional", that the types of enforcement be labeled more descriptively as "behavior based" and "chemistry based". The specific distinction between these two types of enforcement can be recognized from the way in which they handle the three steps of the apprehension process; vehicle stopping, deciding whether to investigate for DUI, and the method of gathering evidence. With regard to penalities, this paper suggests that they perform at least four roles; contribute to general deterrence, contribute to special deterrence, raise revenues, and contribute to (or interfere with) court functioning. Each type of penalty needs to be considered in light of these four functions.

• Corporate Authors:

  Pyramid Planning

  7315 Wisconsin Avenue
  Bethesda, MD  United States  20814

  National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Voas, R B
• Publication Date: 1982-7-1

Media Info

• Pagination: 72 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alternatives analysis; Drunk drivers; Drunk driving; Foreign; Laws; Measures of effectiveness; Penalties; Publicity; Revenues; Safety; Traffic law enforcement
• Uncontrolled Terms: Deterrents; Effectiveness
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Law; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00368340
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Report/Paper Numbers: Final Rpt., HS-806 240
• Contract Numbers: DTNH-22-82-P-05079
• Files: HSL, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Oct 30 1982 12:00AM