Alcohol Testing Truck Drivers Brings Down DUI-Related Crashes

Miami, FL (AHN) – Mandatory alcohol testing of bus and truck drivers has significantly reduced alcohol involvement in deadly automobile crashes, according to a new study.

Researchers from Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University said the testing programs have contributed to the reduction in alcohol being a factor in crashes by about 23 percent. The researchers sampled about 70,000 truck and bus drivers and about 83,000 car drivers for the study.

About 4,000 fatal crashes involving heavy trucks and buses happen in the United States every year. About 80 percent of these accidents are collisions between heavy trucks or buses and passenger cars, the researchers said in a statement.

In these crashes, about 3 percent of the truck and bus drivers, and about 27 percent of the car drivers, are intoxicated.

The study appears in the online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

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