Characteristics of alcohol impaired road users involved in casualty crashes

Abstract

This report links data from multiple sources to present a more comprehensive profile of the person, crash and licensing characteristics of a group of road users involved in a casualty crash as a result of alcohol impairment. Participants were drawn from data collected for those active road users who were admitted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital as a result of crash involvement over the three year period between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2010. An objective alcohol reading was known for 1204 of the 1490 cases in the study. Acute alcohol intoxication was found to be a contributing factor to crash causation in 274 of these 1204 cases, constituting 22.76% of this group. Impairment as the result of alcohol was found across all road user types but was particularly noted amongst pedestrians (55.8% of pedestrians that were tested) and drivers (24.3% of drivers that were tested). An established diagnosis of alcohol dependence at the time of crash involvement was identified for 146 of the 1490 participants in this study, constituting 9.8% of all participants. Indigenous Australians were identified as a vulnerable group found to be at an increased risk of being involved in a crash as the result of alcohol impairment. More than 40 per cent of those participants identified as being alcohol impaired in this study were found to have incurred at least one previous infringement that involved driving with an alcohol level above 0.05gm/100ml and were twice as likely to have had at least one period of licence disqualification when compared with those road users who were not found to be impaired.