here is a report from The U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Agency, Washington, DC 20590 Contract Number DTNH22-93-C-05083 =============================================================================== for the full report see http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/alcohol/alcupdate/alcprobupd.html#People Alcohol Highway Safety:Problem Update ( April 1998 ) [snip ] BAC= (blood alcohol concentration) Driver Race -------- The role of race in the alcohol-crash problem has rarely been addressed in prior research. The 1978 update found some suggestion of a race effect, but could not separate the effect of race from the effect of socio-economic status. The 1989 update reported that data from the first report on the 1986 National Roadside Breathtesting Survey showed that the percentage of white drivers with a BAC of 0.10%+ was about half what it was in 1973, but the percentage of black drivers at these BACs had remained essentially unchanged. The most recent report on the 1986 survey (Lund and Wolfe 1991) found that 5.9% of blacks had a BAC of 0.10% or more compared to 2.7% for whites (p=0.03). Hispanics were also over-represented compared to whites (4.4%), but this difference was not significant because of the small number of Hispanics (124) in the sample and the small percentages involved. Further, the percentage of white drivers with a BAC of 0.10% or more declined nearly 90% from the 1973 roadside survey (5.1% to 2.7%), while the percentages of black drivers and Hispanic drivers with a BAC of 0.10% or more stayed about the same. Popkin and Council (1993) examined crash data in North Carolina to determine the role of white and non-white drivers. Their findings on fatally injured drivers are of particular interest, since BACs were available. Their data indicate that 51% of non-white drivers and 49% of white drivers had a BAC of 0.10% or more, but this difference is not statistically significant (p=0.30). However, there were significant differences in North Carolina with respect to race for various age and sex subgroups of drivers. For example, 58% of male non-white drivers had a BAC of 0.10% or more compared to 53% of male white drivers (p=0.009). The higher percentage of male non-white drivers was due to a much higher percentage with 0.10% or more in the over-24 years age group -- in the under-25 years age group, a higher percentage of white males had a BAC of 0.10% or more than did non-white males. The picture was different for female non-white drivers, with only 23% having a BAC of 0.10% or more compared to 40% of female white drivers. The higher percentage for female white drivers was due to much higher percentages in the under-25 years age group and the over-54 years age group. White and non-white females in the 25-54 age group had about the same percentage of 0.10 drivers, 25% and 22%, respectively. James (1990) examined the characteristics of non-white drivers who had been arrested for DWI in the State of Washington. He found that non-whites comprised 10.5% of the total DWI population. Among non-whites, 11% were Asian, 33% were African-American, 36% were Native American, and 20% were "unknown." His data indicate a small but significant (p=0.007) difference between whites and non-whites with respect to sex (15.7% of whites were female versus 13.8% of non-whites). With respect to age, James' data indicate highly significant (p=0.0000) differences between whites and non-whites, with the differences occurring in the under-30 (38% of non-whites versus 51% of whites) and 30-49 (53% of non-whites and 40% of whites) age groups. James also compared the percentage of various ethnic groups in the DWI population with percentages in the general population and found that Asian-Americans were under-represented in the DWI population by a factor of about 3 to 1, blacks were over-represented by a factor of 1.25 to 1, and Native Americans were over-represented by a factor of 2.53 to 1. Data on Hispanics were not available in the James study, but Tashima and Helander (1993) found that Hispanics are substantially over-represented (38%) among DWI arrestees in California compared to their adult population representation (22%), a factor of 1.73 to 1. The degree to which any racial biases among the arresting officers may have influenced these figures is not known. Using factor analysis, James identified five different profiles of non-white DWIs which he thought might be appropriate for the development of specially-targeted countermeasures: non-white female homemakers; Blacks in the military; unemployed non-whites from blue-collar occupations; Asian-Americans in unstructured jobs; and Older, unemployed non-whites from unstructured jobs. The relative contributions of these sub-groups to the DWI problem were not discussed. While the objective data cited above tend to indicate a general over-representation of blacks and Hispanics in various drinking-driving populations, survey results of self-reported drinking-driving indicate the opposite. A national survey of drunk driving by Herd (1989) found that 10.4% of black men and 2.1% of black women reporting drunk-driving as a problem they had experienced, compared to 27.2% of white men and 10.8% of white women. Finally, Ross et al. (1991) reviewed the literature on drunk driving among blacks and Hispanics in the U.S. circa 1990 and concluded that "most of the research supports the view than American Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately more likely to be drunk drivers," but that "the general relationship seems to be reduced or even reversed for minority youth." These conclusions are consistent with the data cited above. Ross and associates also noted that studies based on self-reported behavior contradict those based on official statistics. [snip] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION [SNIP] In the case of people at risk, a relatively large number of factors have been studied in the recent literature, but only driver sex, age, and to some extent, race, are based on hard epidemiologic data. Among drivers who are characterized by such factors, these data indicate that male drivers, drivers in the 21-34 age group, and drivers who are of the "white" race constitute the largest percentage of alcohol-impaired drivers in fatal crashes. It should be noted that recent data continue to indicate that the role of females in the alcohol-crash problem appears to be increasing. In 1982, 12.3% of drivers in fatal crashes with a BAC of 0.10% or more were female, and this percentage has grown steadily to 15.7% in 1996, an increase of 28%. There is also some evidence from recent data to support the prior hypothesis that the alcohol-crash risk of females is higher than that of males (see above discussion). Similarly, there is some evidence to suggest that non-whites (including blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) are over-represented among alcohol-impaired drivers in fatal crashes even though their overall share of the alcohol-crashes is small in comparison to that of whites. [SNIP] == References === Lund, AK; and Wolfe, AC. (1991). Changes in the incidence of alcohol-impaired driving in the United States, 1973-1986. Journal of Studies on Alcohol 52(4):293-301. James, WH. (1990). A report on driving while intoxicated (DWI) among Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Native Americans for the Washington traffic safety commission. Seattle, Washington: Center for the Study and Teaching of At-Risk Students, University of Washington. Popkin, CL; and Council, FM. (1993). A comparison of alcohol-related driving behavior of white and nonwhite North Carolina drivers. Accident Analysis and Prevention 25(4):355-364. Ross, HL; Howard, JM; Ganikos, ML; and Taylor, ED. (1991). Drunk driving among American Blacks and Hispanics. Accident Analysis and Prevention 23(1):1-11. Tashima H.; and Helander, C. (1993). Legislative report on DUI offenders. In: State of California DMV. Research note Winter 1993/94. Sacramento, California: California Department of Motor Vehicles, Research & Development Section. ============================================================================================= .