Addiction, Drinking Behavior, and Driving Under the Influence

Abstract

Using a survey of drinkers (N = 1,634), we evaluated alternative explanations of heavy and binge drinking, driving under the influence (DUI), DUI arrests, speeding citations, and chargeable accidents. Explanations included socializing, short-term decision-making, unrealistic optimism, risk preferring behavior, and addiction. Most consistent relationships were between substance use and alcohol addiction and dependent variables for (1) binge drinking and (2) DUI episodes. Respondent characteristics (age, marital and employment status, race, etc.) had important roles for DUI arrests. Drinker-drivers and those arrested for DUI are partially overlapping groups with implications for treatment and policies detecting and incapacitating persons from drinking and driving.

Keywords :

• alcohol
• drinking
• addiction
• binge drinking
• heavy drinking
• driving under the influence
• drinking and driving

THE AUTHORS

Frank A. Sloan, Ph.D., is the J. Alexander McMahon Professor of Health Policy and Management and Professor of Economics at Duke University. He is the former Director of the Center for Health Policy, Law and Management at Duke (CHPLM) that originated in 1998. He did his undergraduate work at Oberlin College and received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Before joining the faculty at Duke in July 1993, he was a research economist at the Rand Corporation and served on the faculties of the University of Florida and Vanderbilt University. He was Chair of the Department of Economics at Vanderbilt from 1986 to 1989. His current research interests include alcohol use and smoking prevention, long-term care, medical malpractice, and cost-effectiveness analyses of medical technologies. He also has a long-standing interest in hospitals, including regulation of hospitals, health care financing, and health manpower. Frank has served on several national advisory public and private groups and is the president elect of the American Society of Health Economists. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and was formally a member of the Physician Payment Review Commission. He is the author of about 300 journal articles and book chapters and has coauthored and coedited about 20 books.

Lindsey M. Eldred, J.D., is a Research Associate in the Department of Economics at Duke University. She obtained her JD from Benjamin Cardozo School of Law and is licensed to practice law in New York and North Carolina. Her research interests include DUI deterrence, specialty courts, and criminal justice policies and practices. She also has an interest in public health and the intersection with the legal system. She has co-authored a book on medical practice and has written on the effect of DUI courts on recidivism.

Dontrell Davis, M.S., is a former Associate in Research in the Department of Economics at Duke University. He received his M.S. in Economics from Florida State University. Dontrell currently works as a Depreciation Analyst for a utility company and also does consulting work for small businesses.