Citation

Ross H. Transp. Res. Circular 1999; (487): 37-39.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, U.S. National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper summarizes and interprets material presented at a panel convened by the author at the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board. The session was entitled "Drunk Driving: Yesterday's Problem?" and the presenters were invited to address the issue from different viewpoints, including the academic, the governmental, and the activist. The presentations led the author to the conclusion, offered here in the context of natural history or lifestyle perspectives on social problems, that drunk driving is a middle-aged social problem. That is, it is mature, and if lacking the vigor of youth it is more established and more sophisticated in its formulation than in earlier developmental stages. Although the prognosis in these theoretical perspectives is decline and death for the drunk driving problem due to competition for resources from other social problem claims, that catastrophe appears to the author distant at this time.