2007 National Roadside Survey of Alcohol and Drug Use by Drivers: Drug Results

Abstract

Amy Berning served as the project's Contracting Officer's Technical Representative. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) provided funding and support for the assessment of alcohol use disorders. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) provided funding for the collection of additional blood samples and the administration of the drug use disorders assessment. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) provided support for querying participants about interaction with the criminal justice system. AbstractThis report presents the first national prevalence estimates for drug-involved driving derived from the recently completed 2007 National Roadside Survey (NRS). The NRS is a national field survey of alcohol-and drug-involved driving conducted primarily among nighttime weekend drivers, but also daytime Friday drivers. The survey involved randomly stopping drivers at 300 locations across the continental United States; sites were selected through a stratified random sampling procedure. This included data that we collected during a two-hour Friday daytime session at 60 locations and during four 2-hour nighttime periods (10 p.m. to midnight and 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. on both Friday and Saturday) at 240 locations. Both self-report and biological measures were taken. Biological measures included breath alcohol measurements on 9,413 respondents, oral fluid from 7,719 respondents, and blood samples from 3,276 respondents. Oral fluid and blood samples were subjected to laboratory screening and LC/MS-MS and GC/MS confirmation for 75 drugs and metabolites, including illegal, prescription, and over-the-counter drugs. These data were analyzed to develop the first national prevalence estimate of alcohol-and drug-involved driving. Two prior reports on the 2007 NRS described: (1) the sampling plan and data collection methodology, summarizing the response patterns to the various stages of the multi-part survey; and (2) the prevalence estimates for alcohol-involved driving derived from the study, and comparing them with the three previous National Roadside Surveys (NRS). iii AcknowledgementsThe authors received extensive assistance from State and local officials in the conduct of this project. Our data collection procedures were not routine. The willingness of officials to help us identify cooperating local law enforcement agencies and the willingness of agencies to participate in the project were essential to our success. To all those who helped in conducting this study, the authors express their sincere gratitude. ) which presents the prevalence estimates for alcohol-involved driving derived from the study, and compares those estimates with data from the three previous National Roadside Surveys. MethodologyThree prior national roadside surveys of drivers to estimate prevalence of drinking and driving and determine changes over time have been conducted in the United States. These surveys, which included a brief interview and a breath sample to determine blood alcohol concentration (BAC), were conducted on a s...

Drinking and Parenting Practices as Predictors of Impaired Driving Behaviors Among U.S. Adolescents

“…The National Roadside Survey conducted for the National Highway Traffi c Safety Administration in 2007 found that, among drivers ages 16-20 tested at night, 16.1% tested positive for drugs other than alcohol (based on oral fl uids) and 7.2% tested positive for alcohol (based on breath alcohol measurements) (Lacey et al, 2009a(Lacey et al, , 2009b. Given that alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 31% of the total motor vehicle traffi c fatalities in the United States in 2011 (National Highway Traffi c Safety Administration, 2012), identifying predictors of teenage drinking and driving and RWI is critical to preventing teenage injuries and fatalities.…”

Estimating equivalent cutoff thresholds for drugs in blood and oral fluid using prevalence regression: A study of tetrahydrocannabinol and amphetamine

“…In some cross-sectional studies of drug use, participants were asked to provide a blood sample, and those who objected were asked to provide a sample of oral fluid [2,3]. In those studies, analytical results from blood and oral fluid samples were used to calculate the overall prevalence of drug use.…”

Marijuana as a predictor of concurrent substance use among motor vehicle operators

“…For the current study we used a subset (N = 7,734) of the total sample who provided demographic and substance use data. Because the 2007 NRS is described elsewhere (Lacey et al, 2009b;Lacey et al 2011) it is outlined below only as it is relevant to the current study.…”

“…Participants of the 2007 NRS were randomly selected weekend nighttime drivers at designated roadside locations across the contiguous United States (See Lacey et al, 2009b;2011). Drivers were flagged down by police officers whom directed them to off road study personnel between 10 pm and 3 am on Friday and Saturday nights.…”

“…Marijuana is the most prevalent drug in U.S. roadside surveys where it has been detected in 7% of weekend drivers (Lacey et al 2009b), and the most prevalent drug detected in fatally injured drivers (25% of those tested for drugs; Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2011).…”