Police officers' identification and arrest of injured impaired drivers can be inhibited by a number of factors at the scene of a crash, at hospital emergency departments and in the judicial system. This scientific poster presents a project that was intended to identify these factors and particularly police officers' perceptions of the medical community role in inhibiting or facilitating this process. Therefore, a series of meetings was held with groups of police officers culminating in a Police Officer Focus Group. Following a structured paired comparison method, officers identified the following impediments as most significant: (1) Officer attitude including frustration with the medical and judicial systems, with the medical and judicial systems, lack of priority for driving while intoxicated (DWI) enforcement and sympathy for the injured driver; (2) Driver condition and medical treatment at emergency departments including the inability to observe impairment or to request blood samples as evidence; (3) Prosecutor standards including multiple requirements for probable cause; and (4) emergency department attitudes reflecting low priority assigned to assisting police officers and resistance to officers and for emergency medical personnel, stressing accurate perceptions and recognition of the importance of the impaired driving issue. This was seen as the most important solution to the failure to detect impaired injured drivers.
Abstract