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Abstract
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OBJECTIVES: Under existing Turkish Road Traffic Law, there are two different blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits allowed for drivers in 2013: zero blood alcohol and ≤0.50 g/L. All public transport, taxi, commercial and official vehicle drivers must maintain a zero blood alcohol concentration level while driving in the traffic. Private vehicle drivers must maintain a blood alcohol concentration of 0.50 g/L or lower. The aim of the recent study was to evaluate the effect of these two legal blood alcohol limits on non-fatal traffic accidents occurred under the influence of alcohol.
METHODS: This retrospective study was performed to evaluate the blood alcohol concentration of 224 drivers in non -fatal road accidents between June 2010 and July 2011 by using Head Space-GC at the Izmir Forensic Medicine Group Presidency, Turkey. All cases evaluated by the toxicology department were recorded into a database. We used descriptive statistics, X(2) test, the independent sampling test to analyze the data.
RESULTS: The total number of the drivers involved in nonfatal traffic accidents were 224, 191 of them were private vehicle drivers and 33 of them were public transport, taxi, commercial and official vehicle drivers. In the present study, alcohol was detected in the blood of about 27.2% (n = 61) of the 224 road traffic accidents. Alcohol was positive in 31.4% (n = 60) of private vehicle drivers involved in non-fatal traffic accidents. Blood alcohol concentration values were also above the legal limit (0.50 g/L) in 27.7% (n = 53) of private vehicle drivers. However, blood alcohol level was above the legal limit in only 3% (n = 1) of public transport, commercial and official vehicle drivers involved in nonfatal traffic accidents. These results showed that private vehicle drivers subject to a blood alcohol concentration limit of ≤ 0.50 g/L were significantly associated with an increased risk of non-fatal accident involvement than the drivers subject to a to a zero BAC limit (OR = 12.29, 95% C.I. = 1.64-92.22) (Fisher exact test, P<0.001). Mean blood alcohol level in private vehicle drivers subject to a 0.50 g/L level (52.60 mg/dl ± 94.84) was significantly higher than that of drivers subject to a zero alcohol level (10.76 mg/dl ± 61.80) (t = 2.44, p<0.001).
CONCLUSION: In the light of our results, lowering the BAC limit for private vehicle drivers may reduce the level of driving under the influence of alcohol. We think that a change in the law will decrease the rates of alcohol-related road accidents in Turkey.
Language: en |