Trends in Drug-Involved Driver Fatalities in the United States, 2005--2012

• Activity Number: 353
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 5, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): M. Fe Caces*+ and Eric Sevigny and Kwang Hyun Ra and Terry Zobeck and Karen Rank
• Companies: Executive Office of the President/ONDCP and University of South Carolina and University of South Carolina and ONDCP and Executive Office of the President/ONDCP
• Keywords: impaired driving ; risk factors ; traffic fatalities ; drug testing

Abstract

Relatively little is known about rates and trends in drug-involved driving in the United States. Of the 21,394 fatally injured drivers in 2012, 13,039 (61%) were tested for drugs, yielding drug-positive results for 21% of all fatally injured drivers and 38% of drivers that were drug-tested with known results. Data from all 50 states are from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Analysis has shown increases in the percentage of deceased drivers who were drug tested (from 52% to 61%) and who tested positive among all fatally injured drivers (from 14% to 21%) over the study period. Substantial variation in drug testing and drug-positive rates are noted across drug types and state and county jurisdictions. Analysis shows that certain risk factors are significantly related to drug-involved driving, including driver demographics (gender, race/ethnicity, age), driver factors (alcohol use, speeding, seatbelt use), and crash characteristics (day of week, urbanicity). This presentation will assess trends and perform multivariate analyses to estimate risk factors associated with drug-involved driving.