DRIVER ALCOHOL AND MEDICAL PROBLEMS

This is the final report for a project entitled, "Driver Alcohol and Medical Problems" Project Number 82-01-308C-2 funded by the N.C. Governor's Highway Safety Program. It was a cooperative project involving efforts by individuals from the Division of Motor Vehicles of the N.C. Department of Transportation and the Highway Safety Branch and Health Assurance Section of the Division of Health of the N.C. Department of Human Resources. The intent of the project was to conduct a series of analyses oriented toward providing information useful to operating highway safety agencies in the planning and conducting of their work as it relates to Driver Medical and Alcohol Problems. A secondary goal was to examine the effect that certain programs or laws might have on highway safety. A major effort under this project was to examine the effect that the initial Driver Medical Evaluation process has on the driving performance of persons in that program. The results of that effort appear as Chapter 2 of this report. The next chapter is an examination of the extent to which a population of epileptics is known to the Driver Medical Evaluation Program and how the driving performance of those known to the program and another group not known to the program differ. The fourth Chapter is an examination of the effect adoption of the practice of serving liquor by the drink has had on highway safety in North Carolina. In the next chapter patterns of DUI convictions by BAC level and certain demographic variables are examined. (Author)