The alcohol-related accident risk in Germany: procedure, methods and results

Abstract

This paper presents the first reliable estimation of the alcohol-related accident risk in Germany by comparing a representative sample of accidents to a representative sample of trips not leading to a crash. The information about the trips was taken from the German Roadside Survey 1992–1994 (n = 9087) conducted in Unterfranken, part of Bavaria. These data were weighted according to a representative study of driving in Germany (KONTIV 89). The accident study comprises a representative sample of accidents in Unterfranken in 1993 (n = 1968). Relating accident risk to BAC, the global risk function indicates an exponential increase of accident risk for BACs above 0.05%. Controlling for correlating factors leads to an overall lower estimation with, however, the same structure, indicating that alcohol is consumed by drivers in circumstances which further increase the risk introduced by alcohol. Analyzing the attributable risk (AR) shows that about 12% of all accidents are attributable to alcohol. Over 96% of these happen with BACs of 0.05% and above. Thus, measures aimed at reducing the alcohol-related accident risk must focus on larger BACs, especially of 0.08% and above.