Group Cites Hazards, Attitudes And A Need For Educations

Although drinking and driving in the United States has declined substantially during the past two decades, this trend has not been seen among Latino drivers, particularly Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals.

A new study commissioned by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, with the support of National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco and Los Angeles Commission on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention, sheds disturbing light on the problem of drinking and driving among Mexican Americans and recent Mexican immigrants. The report also proposes avenues for intervention.

The IIHS study involved a detailed survey of 300 Mexican American and Mexican national males and 300 Caucasian males in Long Beach to determine alcohol use, attitudes toward drinking and driving and knowledge of Driving Under the Influence laws. Within each group, 150 were current under arrest for DUI and 150 were randomly selected residents of the local community. Some of the results include:

• Twenty percent of the DUIs and the control group said they had driven after drinking three or more times in the past 28 days, compared with 12 percent for the Caucasian control group.
• Sixty-nine percent of the DUIs felt that they could drive safely after drinking, compared to 46 percent of the Caucasian control group.
• Sixty-five percent of the DUI group and 40 percent of the Mexican control group said it would take 8-to-10 drinks to impair their driving (compared with 11 percent and 5 percent of the Caucasian DUI group and the control groups, respectively).
• Less than 50 percent of the respondents knew that the blood alcohol concentration threshold (BAC) in California was .08 percent. Seventy percent of the Caucasian group was aware of the BAC threshold limit.

"This study highlights the need for education about the dangers of drinking and driving to all communities in California," said Candysse Miller, executive director of the Insurance Information Network of California.

In its recommendations for addressing these issues, the report suggests the development of a community-wide, multi-pronged prevention campaign that includes school-based, law enforcement and church programs to publicize and rectify the problems.

The report concludes that it provides a limited evaluation of attitudes and knowledge regarding drinking and driving among Mexican American males and that further study is needed to confirm these findings with Mexican Americans in other communities.