A reduction in serious casualty accidents has been found to occur with the introduction of random breath tests (RBT). while RBT is a successful countermeasure in general, there are areas where the effectiveness of operations could be improved. One such area might be the use of residential streets by alcohol affected drivers to avoid roadside stations. An investigation of this possibility was reported in this study. A comparison between serious casualty accident rates for an intensive RBT campaign period and routine RBT operations was made. Overall, there was a 2 per cent increase in residential street accidents and a 9 per cent drop in arterial road accidents. This resulted in a net 6 per cent drop in total accidents. Among subsets a statistically significant association between the level of RBT and road type was found only for accidents which occurred on weekends and involved one vehicle: a 20 per cent increase from the non campaign period to the campaign period in residential street accidents was found, while arterial road accidents of the same type decreased by 21 per cent. This suggests that a particular group of drivers, probably alcohol affected, use residential streets to avoid RBT stations. (Author/publisher)
Abstract