Sloan Frank A, McCutchan Sabrina A, Eldred Lindsey M
Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2017 Feb;41(2):432-442. doi: 10.1111/acer.13298. Epub 2017 Jan 5.
Driving while impaired (DWI) is a threat to public health. Codified legal sanctions are a widely implemented strategy to reduce DWI. However, it is unclear that sanctioning affects individual risk perceptions so as to deter alcohol-impaired driving.
Using survey data collected from individual drivers, police, and defense attorneys specializing in DWI in 8 U.S. cities, we investigated whether risk perceptions about legal consequences for alcohol-impaired driving, both the risk of being stopped if driving while alcohol-impaired and receiving specific penalties following a DWI, deter alcohol-impaired driving. First, we analyzed how different drivers' risk perceptions about being pulled over and facing criminal sanctions related to their self-reported alcohol-impaired driving in the year following the interview at which risk perceptions were elicited. Second, using data from an experimental module in which individual's risk perceptions were randomly updated by the interview, we analyzed how each driver's beliefs about his or her own future alcohol-impaired driving responded to randomly generated increases in the apprehension probability and sanction magnitude.
Higher probabilities as estimated by the individuals of being pulled over corresponded to less alcohol-impaired driving in both analyses. Conversely, there was no statistical relationship between perceptions of criminal sanctions for DWI and alcohol-impaired driving with 1 exception-a small significant negative relationship between duration of jail time following a DWI conviction and alcohol-impaired driving.
Perceptions regarding the threat of being apprehended for alcohol-impaired driving were related to actual self-reported driving, while perceived sanctions following a DWI conviction for DWI generally were unrelated to either actual self-reported alcohol-impaired driving or the person's estimate of probability that he or she would drive while alcohol-impaired in the following year. Increasing certainty of apprehension by increasing police staffing and/or conducting sobriety checks is a more effective strategy for reducing alcohol-impaired driving than legislating increased penalties for DWI.
酒后驾车（DWI）对公众健康构成威胁。制定法律制裁措施是减少酒后驾车的一项广泛实施的策略。然而，尚不清楚制裁措施是否会影响个人风险认知，从而威慑酒后驾车行为。
利用从美国8个城市的个体司机、警察和专门处理酒后驾车案件的辩护律师收集的调查数据，我们研究了对酒后驾车法律后果的风险认知，即酒后驾车时被拦下的风险以及酒后驾车定罪后受到特定处罚的风险，是否能威慑酒后驾车行为。首先，我们分析了在引出风险认知的访谈之后的一年里，不同司机对被拦下和面临刑事制裁的风险认知与他们自我报告的酒后驾车情况之间的关系。其次，利用一个实验模块的数据，在该模块中，个体的风险认知通过访谈被随机更新，我们分析了每个司机对自己未来酒后驾车的信念如何应对随机产生的被捕概率和制裁力度的增加。
在两项分析中，个体估计的被拦下的较高概率都对应着较少的酒后驾车行为。相反，对酒后驾车刑事制裁的认知与酒后驾车行为之间没有统计关系，但有一个例外——酒后驾车定罪后的监禁时间长短与酒后驾车行为之间存在微小的显著负相关。
对酒后驾车被捕威胁的认知与实际自我报告的驾驶行为有关，而酒后驾车定罪后的感知制裁通常与实际自我报告的酒后驾车行为或个人对下一年酒后驾车可能性的估计无关。通过增加警察人手和/或进行清醒度检查来提高被捕的确定性，是比立法增加酒后驾车处罚更有效的减少酒后驾车的策略。
