- Title
- Drink-driving and perceptions of legally permissible alcohol use
- Creator
- Kypri, Kypros; Stephenson, S.
- Relation
- Traffic Injury Prevention Vol. 6, no. 3, p. 219-224
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2005
- Description
- Objective. The leading cause of death for young people in developed countries is road traffic crashes, a large proportion of which are attributable to drink-driving. The aims of the study were to estimate the prevalence of drink-driving and drink-riding in a sample of New Zealand university students, and to identify potential risk factors, in particular, students' perceptions of legally permissible consumption before driving. Methods. Participants were 1,564 survey respondents (82% response, mean age = 20.5 years) who were asked to indicate whether they had driven after having "perhaps too much to drink to be able to drive safely," if they had been a passenger in a vehicle "where the driver had perhaps too much to drink to be able to drive safely," and how many standard drinks they could consume in one hour and legally drive a car. An estimated blood alcohol concentration was computed and compared with legal limits. Results. Drink-driving (past four weeks) was reported by 3.4% of women and 8.4% of men. Drink-riding (past four weeks) was reported by 7.0% of women and 11.5% of men. Estimated blood alcohol concentrations from students' reports of how much they could drink in one hour and be below the legal limit of 0.08 g/ml, showed that most respondents dramatically underestimated permissible consumption; only 5.8% overestimated it. Conclusions. This may be a case where misperception of a public health message serves the public good. Further reductions in drink-driving/riding will require attention to transport needs, more visible enforcement of existing legislation, and modification of youth drinking behavior.
- Subject
- college; drink-drive; drink-ride; estimated BAC; perception; student
- Identifier
- uon:346
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/25325
- Identifier
- ISSN:1538-957X
- Rights
- This is an electronic version of an article published in Traffic Injury Prevention Vol. 6, no. 3, p. 219-224. Traffic Injury Prevention is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1538-957X&volume=6&issue=3&spage=219
- Language
- eng
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