Attitudes Towards Impaired Driving Countermeasures

Introduction

In-vehicle drunk-driving prevention technology has the potential to save more than 10,000 lives a year. While past research has found that a majority of drivers are generally supportive of this technology, there are a number of issues that threaten public acceptance of the technology including: privacy concerns, reliability and accuracy, driver inconvenience, and impact on vehicle affordability. Other avenues to reduce impaired driving, including lowering the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) threshold from .08 to .05 have also been considered (Utah was the first state to do so and more states are considering implementation).

Project Goal and Plan

This research will measure the prevalence of public attitudes towards in-vehicle drunk driving prevention technology, BAC .05, and other potential avenues. The project will include an in-depth examination of hypothesized barriers to acceptance using a nationally representative survey of American drivers. Several methods will be used to inform the survey questionnaire, including a literature scan, analysis of existing data from the Traffic Safety Culture Index, analysis of social media using web scraping, and a panel discussion with relevant stakeholders.