Citation

Morrison CN, Ferris J, Wiebe DJ, Peek-Asa CL, Branas CC. Am. J. Prev. Med. 2019; 56(6): 795-802.

Affiliation

Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2019.01.015

PMID

31005468

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Roadside sobriety checkpoints are an intervention in which law enforcement officers stop passing vehicles to check whether drivers are impaired. There is clear evidence that a program of roadside sobriety checkpoints is an effective approach to reducing alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes, likely because of general deterrent effects across the entire population of drivers. The aim of this study is to assess the duration of time over which individual roadside sobriety checkpoints are associated with alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes, within the context of a broader checkpoint program.

METHODS: In August 2018, the authors accessed incident-level data for alcohol-involved motorvehicle crashes and roadside sobriety checkpoints for the City of Los Angeles, California, 2013-2017. Counts of crashes and checkpoints were computed within three different temporal units: days (n=1,826), weeks (n=260), and months (n=60). The number of checkpoints were then calculated at different lagged periods (up to 7days, up to 4 weeks, and up to 3 months). Autoregressive integrated moving average analyses related counts of checkpoints over these lagged periods to subsequent crashes.

RESULTS: Fewer alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes occurred when there were more roadside sobriety checkpoints over the previous 4days, 5days, 6days, 7days, and 1 week.

CONCLUSIONS: Individual roadside sobriety checkpoints affected alcohol-involved motor vehicle crashes in Los Angeles, California for approximately 1 week. The temporal configuration of individual checkpoints is an important consideration when designing an overall roadside sobriety checkpoint program.

Copyright © 2019 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en