CRASH RESPONSIBILITY VERSUS DRUG AND ALCOHOL-USE AMONG FATALLY INJURED AND HOSPITALIZED MOTOR-VEHICLE DRIVERS IN SWEDEN

The present study was aimed at determining whether drivers testing pos itive for drugs and/or alcohol were. more often responsible for the cr ash than the test-negative ones, Data on 241 fatally injured and 102 h ospitalized motor-vehicle drivers was collected in Northern and Wester n Sweden. Blood samples were taken from these drivers and screened for the presence of alcohol, licit drugs, and illicit drugs. A judgment o f responsibility, and assessment of the traffic situation and crash ch aracteristics were based on police reports, Alcohol-positive drivers ( n = 49) were more often (96% vs. 70%, p < 0.0001) judged to be respons ible for the crash than test-negative drivers, Ninety-three percent of the drug-positive drivers were judged to be responsible, but they wer e not significantly more often responsible than the test-negative driv ers, Drug-positive drivers differed from the alcohol-positive drivers In that they more often crossed over to the wrong side of the road and crashed into an oncoming vehicle. The findings support previous studi es that reducing the number of drug-positive drivers in traffic is bou nd to lead to a reduction in crashes resulting in injury Further analy sis with a larger sample is needed to elucidate the association betwee n crash responsibility end drugs other than alcohol.