A linkage study of Western Australian drink driving arrests and road crash records

Records of drivers in all reported road crashes occurring in Western Australia between 1987 and 1995 were linked with records of all drink driving arrests in the same period. About 7% of all drink driving arrests occurred because of a road crash. Differences were observed between these drink-driving crashes and other types of road crashes. Drink driving crashes tended to be more severe than those not involving alcohol. Serious crashes (involving fatalities or hospitalisations) accounted for 20% of alcohol-related crashes, but only 6% of all crashes reported over the study period. From another perspective, crash-related drink-driving arrests were more likely than routine enforcement arrests to involve younger (18-35 years) and older (65 years and over) drink drivers. Routine enforcement arrests, on the other hand, were likely to involve a greater proportion of Aboriginal drivers.