Recently renewed attention has been paid to the question of whether and to what extent police procedures may contribute to reduce drunken driving. The police's potential in this respect may well have been overestimated in the past. To begin with, the activities of police, prosecutor and judiciary are carried out in isolation. Supportive policy, e.g. in the field of public health, is very limited. A second reason is the situation in which drinking behaviour usually takes place. It would be over-optimistic to expect under these circumstances that the perceived risk of being apprehended would be a major factor in influencing drinking/driving behaviour. Finally the public seems to be rather ill-informed about actual police procedures. It is concluded that it is highly improbable that the police could make such an effort as to bring about a sufficiently large long-term risk to the offender of being caught. As a consequence in the given situation there is an adequate reason to experiment in reducing police activities and evaluating the effects on drunken driving. Secondly, other means than the use of police manpower - e.g. publicity - should be applied to increase the perceived risk of being apprehended and thus to restrict drunken driving. (Author/publisher)
Abstract