Citation

Ross HL, McCleary R. Accid. Anal. Prev. 1983; 15(6): 415-428.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1983, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper discusses methodological principles for the study of legal interventions based on the theory of deterrence, especially in the area of drunk driving. It reviews the validity of commonly available measures of drunk driving and identifies strengths and weaknesses of correlational, quasi-experimental, and experimental study designs for demonstrating causal connections between drunk driving and legal interventions. The time series is the most powerful of the quasi-experimental designs. Because it uses high-quality data that are generally available cheaply from official sources, and because it can usually overcome the common threats to inferential validity that plague many other designs, it is recommended as a model for studies of deterrence of drunk driving.