News and notes
Studies examine alcohol's influence on preventable child auto deaths
Two studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association offer new findings about the ways children are affected by drinking drivers and recommend actions to reduce child injury and death associated with alcohol impaired drivers.
Looking at the association between drivers' alcohol use and mortality for child passengers, pedestrians, and bicyclists, one study reports that approximately 550 children died in the US as the result of alcohol related motor vehicle crashes during each of the years studied. The authors recommend clinical interventions and policy initiatives, particularly for teen drivers, because “a disproportionate share of the deaths was associated with drivers younger than 21 years” (Margolis LH. Alcohol and motor vehicle-related deaths of children as passengers, pedestrians, and bicyclists.
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The other study reported what the injury community has long known: that motor vehicle related injury is the leading cause of death to children and young people ages 1–24, with 24% of these deaths involving alcohol. But further, the majority of these deaths occurred to children who were passengers of drinking drivers and who were unrestrained by seat belts or other restraining devices. The authors determined that “among drivers involved in a crash in which their child passenger died, drinking drivers were over six times more likely than non-drinking drivers to have prior convictions for driving while impaired” (Quinlan KP. Characteristics of child passenger deaths and injuries involving drinking drivers.
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An accompanying editorial urges strong action to reduce the number of alcohol related deaths in the US, calling for federal law to send a message of zero tolerance to every driver by making it illegal to drive with a blood alcohol concentration above 0.02%. The author writes that anything other than a zero tolerance policy amounts to “tacit acceptance of thousands of preventable deaths each year” (Li G. Child …
