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Abstract: 

“Drunk Driving: Seeking Additional Solutions”, a policy paper previously written by James T. Hedlund and Anne T. McCartt for the American Automobile Association’s Foundation for Traffic Safety, offers a comprehensive view of the declining success of anti-DWI/DUI efforts in recent years. Released just this May, the paper is built around data that indicates that since 1994, the precipitous drops in DWI/DUI alcohol fatality crash rates that characterized the 1980s and early 1990s have leveled out over the last decade—and recently, the incidence has slightly increased. The central inference the authors draw is that traditional methods of drunk driving control have reached the limits of their usefulness. While the essentials of prevention, enforcement, and rehabilitation may be solid, significant changes need to be made to ensure safer roads. Hedlund and McCartt make many specific structural reform recommendations, but the overarching solution to stagnant drunk driving rates, they suggest, is to move DWI/DUI issues to a more prominent place in the national discourse on public safety. Anne T. McCartt has provided an update and synopsis of her work with James T. Hedlund in the following article.

Keywords: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety;

Affiliations:  1: Preusser Research Group (PRG), Inc..