THE CONTRIBUTION OF ALCOHOL AND OTHER DRUGS AMONG FATALLY INJURED DRIVERS IN QUEBEC: SOME PRELIMINARY RESULTS

This paper presents some preliminary results regarding the contribution of alcohol and other drugs in fatal crashes in Quebec. The data comes out of two sources. Over the past century, alcohol has been identified as the most problematic drug on the road while other drugs have received little attention. As elsewhere, the contribution of alcohol to fatal crashes has substantially decreased in Quebec over the last two decades. That improvement on the alcohol front has raised the issue of a substitution risk, from alcohol to other drugs. Facing this situation, the Societe de l'assurance automobile du Quebec (SAAQ), a Quebec government agency responsible for road safety promotion decided to undertake a major endeavor in order to establish the role of alcohol and other drugs in traffic crashes in Quebec. The research plan integrates the results of tow different analyses. The first one uses a case-control approach, which compares drug presence in fatally injured drivers to drugs detected in drivers participating in a roadside survey. The second one is a responsibility analysis (case-case approach) that compares drug cases to drug-free cases. The paper focuses on the role of alcohol and other drugs among fatally injured drivers using the data available at the end of 2001.