Drinking-driver study

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 6

Drinking-driver study

PA Wellington Nearly 90 per cent of drinking drivers at fault in fatal road accidents in 1977; were male, according to a D.S.I.R. study just released. The study showed that drinking drivers were pre-i dominantly young, and that drivers aged 18 were involved in fatal accidents eight times as often as drivers aged 45. Drinking drivers were; more likely to be unskilled workers. Walking home after the party, the study concluded, did not avoid the problem.

About a sixth of fatal accidents involved pedestrians. Half of these were either the very young or the elderly, but about haff of the others were drunk, and some of those were very drunk. Over all, however, only 9 per cent of those killed in 1977 in drinking-driving accidents were innocent victims. Drunk drivers tended to kill themselves or their pass-] engers in a one-car acci-i dent. or. quite often, killed' another drunk driver. ; The study was only the second detailed study of the role of alcohol in fatal road

■'accidents in New Zealand. Both were done bv Dr J. ■ Bailey, of the D.S.I.R. His first study, in 1970. ‘ showed that about 45 per icent of fatal road accidents in that year involved alcoI'hol. The comparable figure i'for 197" was 53 per cent. Nearly half the fatal accidents involving alcohol in '1977 occurred on Friday or •(Saturday between 7 p.m. and 15 a.m.; just under one-third on weeknights: and nearly I'all the rest during the rest ■of the week-end. ;| The peak hour for fatal; 'accidents involving alcohol; I was 11 p.m. to midnight.