Motor Vehicle Injury Alcohol-Impaired Driving: 0.08% Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Laws
Findings and Recommendations
The Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF) recommends 0.08% BAC laws based on strong evidence of their effectiveness in reducing alcohol-related motor vehicle crash fatalities.
The full CPSTF Finding and Rationale Statement and supporting documents for Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: 0.08% Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Laws are available in The Community Guide Collection on CDC Stacks.
Intervention
These laws state that it is illegal for a driver’s blood alcohol concentration to exceed 0.08%.
About The Systematic Review
The CPSTF finding is based on evidence from a systematic review of 9 studies (search period through June 2000).
Study Characteristics
- Each study evaluated 0.08% BAC laws in one or more of the 16 states that implemented the laws before January 1, 1998.
- Studies reviewed fatal injury crashes (8 studies) and fatal and nonfatal injury crashes (1 study).
- All of the included studies analyzed data from police incident reports of crashes occurring on public roadways.
- Post-law follow-up times for individual state laws ranged from 1 to 14 years (median, 5 years).
- The states studied were geographically diverse with varying population densities.
Summary of Results
Nine studies qualified for the systematic review.
- Fatalities due to alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes: median decrease of 7% following implementation of the law (interquartile range: 15% to 4% decrease; 7 studies)
Summary of Economic Evidence
An economic review of this intervention did not find any relevant studies.
Applicability
Results should be applicable to all drivers in the U.S., though the review did not find information on the effectiveness of these laws in various subgroups.
Evidence Gaps
Research Issues Laws
- How do variations in enforcement levels influence the effectiveness of laws to reduce alcohol-impaired driving?
- What are the independent effects of publicity on the effectiveness of laws to reduce alcohol-impaired driving?
- Does public compliance with new laws change in a predictable manner over time?
General Research Issues
The following outlines evidence gaps for reviews of these interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving: 0.08% Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) Laws; Lower BAC Laws for Young or Inexperienced Drivers; Maintaining Current Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) Laws; Sobriety Checkpoints (archived); Intervention Training Programs for Servers of Alcoholic Beverages (archived).
General Questions
- How do interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving interact with each other (e.g., 0.08% BAC laws and administrative license revocation)?
- What effects do these interventions have on long-term changes in social norms about drinking and driving?
Applicability
Questions remain about possible differences in the effectiveness of each intervention for specific settings and subgroups. For example:
- Are these interventions equally effective in rural and urban settings?
- Are these interventions equally effective when applied to populations with different baseline levels of alcohol-impaired driving?
- Does targeting publicity efforts to specific subpopulations (e.g., young drivers, ethnic minorities, men) improve the effectiveness of interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving?
Other Positive or Negative Effects
Few other positive and negative effects were reported in this body of literature. Further research about the following questions would be useful:
- What proportion of youths charged with violating zero tolerance laws had BAC levels elevated enough to warrant a more serious drinking-driving offense?
- Do interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving reduce other forms of alcohol-related injury?
Economic Evaluations
Little economic evaluation information was available. Research is warranted to answer the basic economic questions:
- What are the cost-benefit, cost utility, and cost-effectiveness of interventions to reduce alcohol impaired driving?
Barriers to Implementation
Several of the interventions reviewed face barriers to effective implementation. Research into the following areas may help to overcome these barriers:
- What role can community coalitions play in removing barriers to implementing interventions designed to prevent alcohol-impaired driving?
- What are the most effective means of disseminating research findings about effectiveness to groups that want to implement interventions?
- What forms of incentives (e.g., insurance discounts) are most helpful for increasing management and owner support for server intervention training?
- How can the costs of interventions to prevent alcohol-impaired driving be shared or subsidized?
- What situational and environmental influences help or hinder the implementation of server intervention training?
Implementation Considerations and Resources
- Engage partners throughout the process. Building support from the ground up can help secure policies that reinforce healthy behaviors in the community.
- Demonstrate why the policy is important. Use Task Force findings and recent surveillance data to show partners how policies have been effective.
- Educate stakeholders. Keep the media, community influencers, and policymakers informed about BAC laws to help communicate messages that are accurate and timely.
- Keep messages brief and to the point. Use graphics, figures, or infographics to clearly demonstrate how the intervention can improve health outcomes.
- Extend your communication reach by working through partners who have the most credibility with key audiences.
- Pay attention to sustainability. Continue to conduct surveillance related to alcohol-impaired driving and disseminate findings.
Crosswalks
Healthy People 2030 includes the following objectives related to this CPSTF recommendation.