The interactionist nature of drinking and driving: a structural model

A structural model is described that examines the contributions of personal and situational determinants (interactionist theory) for the elicitation of previous self-reported drink-driving offending. Responses of 1011 UK driver's licence holders to 57 questions concerning demographics, driving experience/exposure, deterrence issues, attitudinal factors and situation specific drink-driving behaviour were subjected to a series of multiple regression analyses. Seven variables (five personal and two situational) accounting for 46% of the sample variance were shown to be significantly predictive of undetected offending behaviour. Of these age and safe driving consumption estimates were found to be best described in terms of their direct effects on offending behaviour. The relationships between general alcohol consumption and exposure to secondary level enforcement (breath test) with drink-driving behaviour have both direct and indirect effects. Two attitudinal factors referring to a belief of deterrence if random breath testing were introduced into the UK, and arranging alternative transport on a drinking occasion, as well as exposure to a drink-driving charge, show approximately proportional direct and spurious links with offending. Findings are discussed i n terms of the utility of an interactionist approach for the study of drink-driving behaviour, previous attempts at modelling drink-driving behaviour, and the implications that such results have for counter-measure development.