Drink driving engagement in women: An exploration of context, hazardous alcohol use, and behaviour

Better understanding female and male driving offenders' behavior: Psychological resources and vulnerabilities matter!

Although driving risk taking appears to be mainly male, an increase in driving violations has been observed in recent years among French female drivers. The main objective of the present study was to explore the driving behaviors, psychological resources, and vulnerabilities of female and male driving offenders participating in a French driver rehabilitation program. The second aim was to examine to what extent females' and males' resources and vulnerabilities predicted their violations, engagement in distracting activities while driving, and prosocial driving behaviors. In the course of 110 rehabilitation programs, 1686 driving offenders (22.4% females) completed a paper-and-pencil questionnaire. Compared to male offenders, females were more likely to have received a higher education, be divorced, or separated, and drive fewer annual kilometers. They also had had fewer demerit points than males in the last three years. They were more empathetic but also more impulsive than their male counterparts and less self-compassionate and mindful. Regression and moderation analyses revealed that, across genders, certain psychological resources such as mindfulness can be considered as protective factors for driving offenders as they tend to decrease dangerous behaviors and increase prosocial ones, while vulnerabilities such as aggressive driving anger expression seem to have the opposite effect. Our results provide a better understanding of driving offenders' behavior and the influence of personal dispositions. They also open new interesting research avenues in the prevention of dangerous behaviors among this high-risk population.

Self-Report Survey Measures of Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE

Alcohol-impaired driving is a major contributor to motor vehicle crash deaths and injury. Many survey studies include self-report measures of alcohol-impaired driving, but no guidance is available to help researchers select from among available measures. The aims of this systematic review were to compile a list of measures that researchers have used previously, to compare performance between measures, and to identify the measures with highest validity and reliability.

METHOD

Literature searches of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science identified studies that assessed alcohol-impaired driving behavior through self-report. The measures from each study and, if available, indices of reliability or validity were extracted. Using the measures' text, we developed 10 codes to group similar measures and compare them. For example, the "alcohol effects" code refers to driving while feeling dizzy or lightheaded after drinking, and the "drink count" code pertains to the number of drinks someone consumed before driving. For measures with multiple items, each item was categorized separately.

RESULTS

After screening according to the eligibility criteria, 41 articles were included in the review. Thirteen articles reported on reliability. No articles reported on validity. The self-report measures with the highest reliability coefficients contained items from multiple codes, namely alcohol effects and drink count.

CONCLUSIONS

Self-report alcohol-impaired driving measures with multiple items evaluating distinct aspects of alcohol-impaired driving show better reliability than measures using a single item. Future work investigating the validity of these measures is needed to determine the best approach for conducting self-report research in this area.

Past behaviours and future intentions: An examination of perceptual deterrence and alcohol consumption upon a range of drink driving events

INTRODUCTION

The threat of application of legal sanctions remains the prominent approach to reduce the prevalence of drink driving in a vast array of motoring jurisdictions. However, ongoing questions remain regarding: (a) the extent that such mechanisms impact upon offending behaviours, (b) the deleterious effect alcohol consumption has on decisions to drink and drive and (c) how best to operationalise (and measure) the concept of drink driving to enhance the accurate measurement of the dependent variable.

METHOD

This paper reports on an examination of 773 Queensland motorists' (across nine local government areas) perceptions of both legal and non-legal drink driving sanctions (as well as alcohol consumption) in order to gauge the deterrent impact upon a range of measures of drink driving: the driver thinking they are over the limit, the driver knowing they are over the limit, attempts to evade random breath testing, and intentions to re-offend. The sample completed an online or paper version of the questionnaire.

RESULTS

The majority of participants reported "never" engaging in "possible" (74.5 %) or "acknowledged" (83.4 %) drink driving events, although a considerable proportion of the sample reported engaging in "possible" (25.5 %) or "acknowledged" (16.6 %) drink driving and attempting to evade RBT (18 %) events, as well as possible intentions to drink and drive in the future (22 %). Males were more likely to report such events. Perceptions of both legal sanctions (certainty, severity and swiftness) as well as non-legal sanctions (fear of social, internal or physical harm) were relatively high and consistent with previous research. Interestingly, non-legal sanctions were reported as stronger deterrents than legal sanctions. However, multivariate analysis revealed that legal deterrents had limited utility predicting offending behaviours, but rather, demographic characteristics (e.g., younger motorists, males) as well as risky drinking behaviour were better predictors. In regards to intentions to offend, a past conviction for drink driving was also a predictor of re-offending.

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

These results highlight the ongoing challenges of addressing the problem of drink driving and that some motorists: (a) have entrenched behaviour and/or (b) make the decision to drink and drive before they are under the influence of alcohol.