Citation

Åberg L. Proc. Int. Counc. Alcohol Drugs Traffic Safety Conf. 1995; 1995: 367-372.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1995, The author(s) and the Council, Publisher International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

On July 1 1990 the legal BAC limit in Sweden was lowered from .05 to .02 percent. In the present paper results from a cross sectional study where effects of the change of law on drivers decision making, attitudes and self reported behaviour have been investigated in three questionnaire studies in 1987, 1991 and in 1994. In 1987, three years before the change of the BAC limit, a questionnaire was sent to 4000 drivers who were asked about different aspects of drunken driving. About one year after the change of the law, in 1991, the questionnaire study was repeated on a new sample of 2000 drivers. After the change almost all drivers knew about the new limit and were in favour of the change. However, nothing in the answers indicated a change of driver behaviour and the attitudes after the change had become more permissive towards driving with a BAC over the limit. In the present study (involving 2000 drivers) the problem is to investigate if the immediate effects of 1991 remain the same after another three years or if the attitudes have changed back again and if fewer drivers report drunken driving over the .02 percent BAC limit than before. The response rate in all three studies was between 65 and 70 percent.