Drink-driving and the alcohol beverage industry: Will reducing per capita consumption solve the problem in the United Kingdom?
✍ Scribed by David Riley
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1987
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 1009 KB
- Volume
- 19
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0001-4575
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The impact of drinking and driving is one focus of the mounting concern in the West over the widespread incidence of alcohol-related problems. Conventional wisdom, in the United Kingdom as well as in other countries, suggests that reducing average consumption levels will diminish the impact of the negative effects of alcohol including drinking and driving. But whether policies designed to achieve changes in per capita consumption by increasing alcohol taxes across the board constitute the most effective strategy to reduce drinking and driving is called into question. A number of competing interventions directed at the alcohol beverage industry are analysed and new directions for producers and policymakers are proposed.
Any analysis of the role of alcohol in the incidence of drinking and driving should not neglect the evidence concerning the part played by variations in the consumption of ~,lcohol in the incidence of a wide range of alcohol-related problems. It seems likely that the impetus for change will reflect concern not only about road casualties and fatalities brought about by drinking drivers, but also concern about alcoholism, cirrhosis and so on. The impact of alcohol problems is significant: recently the resource costs of alcohol raisuse in the United Kingdom have been estimated at over £1500 million [McDonnell ~,nd Maynard, 1985]. Moreover, the development of policies for alcohol control has not c,nly a national dimension but is one of the major themes of the World Health Organi:;,ation [WHO, 1982]. Indeed, to the extent that attention is focussed exclusively on crinking and driving, the range of possible interventions may be unduly restricted to measures which will impact uniquely on this problem. Such initiatives as increasing law enforcement or the level of sanctions for convicted offenders clearly have a part to play, but need to be set against a range of alternatives which embrace a more comprehensive assessment of possible courses of action.
There is strong evidence that the national incidence of alcohol-related problems is c !osely related to average levels of alcohol consumption [Popham, 1970; Brunn, Edwards, aad Lumio et al., 1975]. Kendell [1984], for example, examined the relationship between per capita consumption of alcohol in the U.K. and the incidence of alcohol-related problems since the beginning of the 1970s. Average consumption levels increased from 7 0 litres of ethanol per year in 1970 to 9.8 litres in 1979, then fell by more than 10% to 8.7 litres per year between 1979 and 1982. The decrease was accompanied by significant reductions in first admissions to hospitals for alcohol dependence and in cirrhosis mortality. Indeed, over the 1970-1982 period Kendell found significant correlations between per capita consumption and these alcohol-related events.
Attention to the shorter-term sequelae of alcohol abuse--including drinking and driving--using aggregate level data is relatively more recent. In the aforementioned report, Kendell refers to the relationship between per capita consumption and the level o! convictions for drunkenness and for drink-driving offences. These showed a similar link with aggregate consumption levels. The reduction in drink-driving convictions, for example, at 7% was almost twice as great as the reduction in cirrhosis mortality (4%).
Similar findings were reported by Wagenaar [1984] in a methodologically more sophisticated study of the link between alcohol consumption and motor vehicle crashes. Wagenaar was able to allow for seasonal effects and long-term trends in his data in a time-series analysis, based on a single jurisdiction in the U.S. (Michigan), and found a