Research identifies effective interventions against alcohol-impaired driving
CDC and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services—an independent, nonfederal panel of community health experts—published systematic reviews of the literature for five community-based interventions to reduce alcohol-impaired driving. The reviews revealed strong evidence of effectiveness for 0.08% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) laws, minimum legal drinking age laws, and sobriety checkpoints. They also found sufficient evidence of effectiveness for lower BAC laws specific to young or inexperienced drivers (zero tolerance laws) and intervention training programs for alcohol servers. A detailed description of the sobriety checkpoints systematic review was published in the December 2002 issue of Traffic Injury Prevention. The systematic review of the effectiveness of 0.08% BAC laws for drivers was helpful in establishing a 0.08% standard nationwide. The review revealed that state laws that lowered the illegal BAC for drivers from 0.10% to 0.08% reduced alcohol-related fatalities by a median of 7 percent, translating to 500 lives saved annually. With this evidence, the Task Force on Community Preventive Services strongly recommended that all states pass 0.08% BAC laws. In October 2000, the President signed the Fiscal Year 2001 transportation appropriations bill, requiring states to pass the 0.08% BAC law by October 2003 or risk losing federal highway construction funds. As of October 1, 2003, 45 states and the District of Columbia had enacted 0.08% BAC legislation.