Alcohol use among victims of vehicular crashes admitted to a level I trauma center.

Estimates of alcohol use among non- fatal accidents remain biased by selective BAC testing. The National Accident Sampling System (NASS), relies on a sampling of accident and police reports to obtain estimates of alcohol- involved accidents. Alcohol testing, while not routinely obtained by the police, is routinely obtained on patients admitted to some trauma centers.Although this population is a select group at one end of the spectrum of injury severity, it gives some insight into the validity of police reported estimates of alcohol use.