title: A linkage study of Western Australian drink driving arrests and road crash records.
abstract: Records of drivers in all reported road crashes occurring in Western Australia between 1987 and 1995 were linked with records of all drink driving arrests in the same period. About 7% of all drink driving arrests occurred because of a road crash. Differences were observed between these drink-driving crashes and other types of road crashes. Drink driving crashes tended to be more severe than those not involving alcohol. Serious crashes (involving fatalities or hospitalisations) accounted for 20% of alcohol-related crashes, but only 6% of all crashes reported over the study period. From another perspective, crash-related drink-driving arrests were more likely than routine enforcement arrests to involve younger (18-35 years) and older (65 years and over) drink drivers. Routine enforcement arrests, on the other hand, were likely to involve a greater proportion of Aboriginal drivers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Australia. diana@dph.uwa.edu.au
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Rosman
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Ferrante
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Marom
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic / Q000401:mortality / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000435:Alcoholic Intoxication / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003415:Crime / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012042:Registries; D012306:Risk; D017678:Sex Distribution; D014904:Western Australia / Q000453:epidemiology