On September 17, 1981 Maine enacted what its governor called """"""""the toughest drunk driving law in the nation."""""""" The law was designed to facilitate conviction and arrest of drunk drivers and to provide mandatory penalties. Prior to the law, telephone surveys asked approximately 1000 randomly selected persons in Maine and Massachusetts about drunk driving and enforcement of drunk driving statutes. These surveys are being repeated in 1982 and 1983 after the law. Annual post law surveys of police and court officials and a monitoring of arrests and their judicial disposition compare actual pre and post law enforcement in each state. Comparison of fatal crash rates per 100 million vehicle miles driven was planned in each state for five years preceding and three years following the law. Massachusetts was selected for comparison because it had similar fatal crash trends and drunk driving laws before Maines's legal changes. During the first post law year drunk driving behavior declined and perceptions of drunk driving law enforcement changed in Maine. Fatal crashes declined 42% per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, a significant reduction relative to Massachusetts and to the other New England states. At the end of that year, Massachusetts also increased its drunk driving penalties, particularly for repeat offenders and drivers in fatal crashes. However, Massachusetts did not implement Maine's reforms to expedite arrest and conviction. We propose to assess whether by simply increasing legal penalties, Massachusetts can achieve similar fatal crash reductions. If so, and this is not identified, it could confound our ability to assess whether Maine's law sustains its beneficial effects over time. The other four New England states will be compared with Massachusetts. In October, 1982 a random sample telephone citizen survey of those states N=1310 asked about the year prior to the Massachusetts law. The same questions as in the 1981 and 1982 Maine and Massachusetts surveys were asked for comparative purposes. Funds are available to repeat the Maine, Massachusetts, and New England surveys in 1983. This proposal requests funds to repeat those surveys again in 1984. This will provide 3 full years of post law surveys for our Maine-Massachusetts comparison and 2 full years of post law data for our Massachusetts-New England comparison. By repeating these surveys and extending our police, arrest, court disposition, and fatal crash monitoring through August 1985, we will explore which legal approach, Maine's or Massachusetts', achieves the most marked and sustained increases in public perceptions of drunk driving law enforcement and the greatest reductions in drunk driving and in fatal crash rates.
