As of the 1st of July 1990, the legal BAC limit in Sweden was lowered from 0.05% to 0.02%. To assess the impact of this reform, an intervention ARIMA-analysis was performed on traffic accidents data. Three categories of accidents were analysed: (i) fatal accidents, (ii) single-vehicle accidents, and (iii) all traffic accidents. According to the findings the intervention was followed by a significant decrease in the number of traffic accidents. For all traffic accidents, the reduction was about 7 per cent, for single-vehicle accidents, 11 per cent, and for fatal accidents, 10 per cent. Although the outcome accords with previous experience and some other data that suggest a general downward shift in BAC-level, it cannot be precluded that the estimated intervention effect is confounded by other factors. The results should therefore be interpreted with caution. The intervention models included proxies for mileage and per capita alcohol consumption as controls. (A)
Abstract