A Universal Goal with Voluntary Participation

I commend those who work in road safety who can put on a smile and look optimistically at things like Target Zero (Washington State), Vision Zero (Sweden, Netherlands, United Kingdom), and Toward Zero Deaths (Minnesota, but many other states have virtually identical programs). Each of these programs intends to eventually get the number of deaths and serious injuries from vehicle crashes down to zero. It’s an admirable goal. It is a goal that everyone everywhere should want to accomplish, yet there are some sticking points. After being first on scene to more than one alcohol-related crash, my spark is fading.

When I was growing up I was raised to firmly believe that one must always wear a seatbelt in a car and that one never, ever drinks and drives. But as I have grown up and experienced life in most every corner of North America, I see that there are many people who do not share the same core belief.

What is most frustrating to me is when my peers, so people in their 20s, don’t wear a seatbelt or drink and drive. These are things that we have known are harmful for our entire lives. If after two decades of being told through so many mediums you still won’t wear a seatbelt and you still decide to get behind the wheel drunk, what hope is there for you in the next two decades? That said, please prove me wrong. While I normally hate being wrong, I will gladly make an exception here.

It is impossible to legislate behavior. Yes, drinking and driving is not legal. But lots of things aren’t legal and widely done. Plenty of folks use illicit drugs and speed, and our prisons tell us that some folks rob banks, assault, and murder. The threat of prison (and, in some states, death) for crimes clearly wasn’t an effective deterrent.

This leads me to question what the contributing causes of dangerous driving behavior are. I cannot count the number of educational campaigns I sat through in school or the catchy commercials I see and hear around the holidays. Maybe awareness isn’t the problem at all. Maybe the problem is beyond the realm of where most transportation people routinely travel. Maybe it’s more connected to health and social status than knowledge and awareness. Maybe someone who is depressed feels they have less to lose, whether they get ticketed or get into a crash. Maybe an alcoholic believes they have merely adjusted to consuming a certain number of drinks and is “fine.”

Maybe we should stop staring at FARS and our state crash databases and look more into injury prevention and public health fields to find out if there are consistencies with those who drink and drive or who do not wear seatbelts. These are variables in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which is a big survey conducted by the CDC. It’s on my list of things to investigate.

Zero road-related fatalities is a noble goal and it is one that, I believe is entirely within our grasp if everyone cooperates. The trouble is, cooperation is voluntary whether an individual realizes it or not. 

Drunk Driving Policy with Beer Goggles On

Recently the National Transportation Safety Board made a public endorsement to reduce the legal limit blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.05 from 0.08 (g/dL). The existing 0.08 limit was set about 10 years ago by Congress and soon afterward the number of drunk-driving related fatalities began to fall. However, the number of drunk-driving related fatalities has seemingly plateaued at about 10,000 fatalities per year.

While it is true that consuming any alcohol can impact judgment and reaction times, I am not convinced a substantial number of fatalities are accounted for by the 0.05 to 0.08 range. In fact, I am concerned that reducing the legal limit to 0.05 from 0.08 will be more dangerous than leaving well enough alone.

I was discussing this proposed change with a friend of mine and we agreed that when a limit is considered to be set too low, it is ignored more than a more reasonable rule or limit. A favorite example of mine is the speed limit on I-99 in and near Altoona, PA. Through Altoona the posted speed limit is 55 mph because it is a developed, urbanized area. When I-99 is traveling through undeveloped areas the speed limit is 65 mph. I drive this route a lot. From this experience, I have observed that the mean speed tends to be about 70 mph. The lower speed limit has no apparent effect on actual speed, yet in that area drivers are putting themselves at risk for a much costlier ticket.

Given that for some individuals, 0.05 is not even one drink and the average drunk driver drives 80 times before getting caught, the change seems meaningless. And if one drink puts you over the legal limit and you elect to drink anyway, why stop after one drink?

My additional concerns regarding this proposed policy are related to how we look at drunk driving. Drunk driving is still very often considered a white man’s problem (although incidence is greater in Native American populations, there are fewer of them overall and some areas have virtually no Native American population). However, the involvement of women and minorities in alcohol-related crashes is rising. Yet, few campaigns are directed at these groups and their drunk driving habits.

Flavored alcohols are really taking off. Flavored alcohols are largely targeted toward women—women who are driving and working in greater numbers than ever before. Yet, when you think of the relationship between women and drunk driving, your first thought (if you have one regarding this matter) is Mothers Against Drunk Driving, MADD. Our collective first thought should be: almost equally likely to get behind the wheel when they shouldn’t after a night on the town.

My experience with drunk driving checkpoints reflects these gender differences. Once, while traveling with my dad we went through a checkpoint. The police officer asked my dad a series of questions. He hadn’t been drinking and after about a minute we were on our way. On the other hand, I have never even been asked a question by an officer at a checkpoint.

Furthermore, given how often many regular drunk drivers must drive before getting caught, more emphasis needs to be placed on recidivism. If that is not possible, why not increase the penalties? Here is an example of a guy with 15 DUIs that is still on the road! How about after 3 DUIs an individual gets a permanent license suspension without exceptions?

Before the BAC is lowered, I want to know how many fatalities were tied to a driver with a BAC between 0.05 and 0.08 and what percentage that is of the whole of drunk driving fatalities, and I believe that is what the public should demand before surrendering the 0.08 limit. Addressing the issue of drunk driving is a lot more than reducing the legal BAC. Lowering the BAC is an attempt to grasp the low hanging fruit but, truthfully, the low hanging fruit has been snapped up. Law enforcement, the court system, and transportation agencies need to get together and try something new, something radical, something never done before.

But please, if you're reading this, just don't drink and drive. Don't even make this an issue we've got to talk about. Ultimately, drinking and driving is something we should all be preventing.

Why Road Safety?

Folks often wonder how I found transportation. Virtually everyone I have ever worked with in the field has asked because of my clear devotion to the field. To me, it seems like the most natural thing. When I was a little girl, while my peers dreamed of being nurses and teachers, I dreamed of becoming an airplane pilot. In fourth grade when we learned how to read maps in social studies I was already a superstar, my dad had long since left me to navigate on family road trips. But I can pinpoint exactly where and when the modern incarnation of my passion for transportation was sparked. It requires a trip back in time and to the high Mojave Desert.

West of Barstow, Summer 2002

“…multi-vehicle accident shutting down northbound 15 near Baker … it was a bad one, CHP says it’ll be closed for a few hours … stay off the road if you can”

This is our second trip to Las Vegas. Rand McNally Road Atlas in hand, no alternate routes seem to put us in a better position than waiting it out. Nothing in Victorville seems inspiring. I seem to remember a mall in Barstow. We have a new plan, lunch and a stroll around the mall in Barstow.

The parking lot is full. Clearly, we aren’t the only ones who got the message of the closure. We manage to find a place to park and make for, what we now know is, the Tanger Outlets at Barstow. After grabbing food at the food court, buying a new pair of sandals and some CDs, we’ve successfully killed about two hours. In the car, before we even get out of the parking lot, we tune to the Highway Stations to determine if the accident has cleared. It has. We’re on our way!

By the time we reach Baker we see no evidence of this crash that apparently had claimed at least one life and required at least one person to be transported via helicopter to a hospital. About three hours on scene cleaned up a crash that, as I know in the present, had a cumulative cost of several million dollars—not to mention the cost of the substantial delays incurred by those waiting on the highway and waiting at the outlet mall.

Penn State, Summer 2012

Research questions I am currently attempting to answer:

What demographic factors influence the number of fatal and major injury crashes?

What effect does time to EMS and time to hospital have on the injury outcome of crashes?

It seems so funny to me that a few hours of my life, a few hours that seemed pretty ordinary to everyone else at the outlet mall, changed the course of my life. I can’t save the person or people who perished on I-15 that day, but I am motivated by the thought that maybe I can prevent a similar future crash. Inspiration lurks everywhere.

And every time I visit an outlet mall, I usually tell this story to my shopping companions, even if they’ve heard it a million times before.