Drinking and driving and perceptions of arrest risk among California drivers: Relationships with DUI arrests in their city of residence

ABSTRACT

Objective: Addressing drinking and driving remains a challenge in the United States. The present study aims to provide feedback on driving under the influence (DUI) in California by assessing whether drinking and driving behavior is associated with the DUI arrest rates in the city in which the driver lives; whether this is due to perceptions that one can get arrested for this behavior; and whether this differed by those drivers who would be most affected by deterrence efforts (those most likely to drink outside the home).

Methods: This study consisted of a 2012 roadside survey of 1,147 weekend nighttime drivers in California. City DUI arrest rates for 2009–2011 were used as an indicator of local enforcement efforts. Population average logistic modeling was conducted modeling the odds of perceived high arrest likelihood for DUI and drinking and driving behavior within the past year.

Results: As the DUI arrest rates for the city in which the driver lives increased, perceived high risk of DUI arrest increased. There was no significant relationship between either city DUI arrest rates or perceived high risk of DUI arrest with self-reported drinking and driving behavior in the full sample. Among a much smaller sample of those most likely to drink outside the home, self-reported drinking and driving behavior was negatively associated with DUI arrests rates in their city of residence but this was not mediated by perceptions.

Conclusion: The results of the present study suggest that perceptions are correlated with one aspect of DUI efforts in one's community. Those who were more likely to drink outside the home could be behaviorally influenced by these efforts.

KEYWORDS:

• Deterrence
• drinking and driving
• DUI
• enforcement
• risk perception

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the 3 anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Funding

The main study was a collaborative effort of the California Office of Traffic Safety, the University of California at Berkeley Safe Transportation Research and Education Center, and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and was funded as a part of the California Traffic Safety Program through the support of the California Office of Traffic Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Dr. MacLeod was supported by Award Number T32AA007240, Graduate Research Training on Alcohol Problems, from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official view of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institutes of Health, the State of California Business Transportation and Housing Agency, the U.S. Department of Transportation, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.