Scandinavian Drinking-Driving Control: Myth or Intuition?

Econometric analyses lend strong support to the position that law enforcement contributes substantially to the control of drinking and driving and the concomitant costs in terms of deaths and serious injuries that result from motoring accidents. Econometric models are used, with both time-series and cross-section data, to distinguish among the effects of alcohol consumption, traffic load and density, road quality, vehicle mix, and law-enforcement activity in the determination of accidents on public roads. Results are statistically significant and appear intuitively correct for those variables, in addition to lending support to the great common-sense plausibility of the (deterrence) hypothesis' in Norway and Sweden. (Author/TRRL)