Report Identifies Lifesaving Alcohol Laws

Laws that prevent alcohol purchases and possession by youth are the most effective at preventing drunk-driving fatalities, according to a new report that also praises as effective license suspensions for underage alcohol offenses and zero-tolerance laws for drivers under 21 found with alcohol in their system.

HealthDay News reported April 6 that researcher James C. Fell of the Pacific Institute on Research and Evaluation estimated that zero-tolerance and purchase/possession laws save 732 lives each year, and that another 165 lives could be saved annually if all states adopted the most effective laws.

’Use-and-lose’ laws cut alcohol-related traffic crashes by 5 percent, according to the study, which looked at national databases on drunk driving and six state laws aimed at reducing underage drinking and four other laws that addressed drunk driving in general.

“Thirty-six states plus D.C. have such a law,” Fell said. “I would ask the 14 states that don’t to strongly consider adapting that legislation because, if they do and publicize it, they’ll see a significant decrease in drinking-and-driving accidents.”

The study, which was funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, found that three other laws — the .08-percent blood-alcohol standard and license suspensions for drunk driving, as well as statutes allowing police to pull over drivers who fail to wear a seatbelt — also were effective. However, researchers said keg-registration laws and graduated drivers’ licenses had no measurable effect on alcohol-related traffic deaths.

“The effectiveness of laws on underage drinking found by Dr. Fell are consistent with research we’ve done in the past,” said Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “This is an issue that has had lots of different solutions thrown at it — some of them effective and some of them not.”

Higher per-capita alcohol consumption also was related to higher rates of fatal alcohol crashes.

The research appears in the online edition of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and will appear in the July 2009 issue.

(Does my state have lifesaving alcohol laws?)