The effect of the Safer at Home order on the frequency of DUI breath alcohol tests in Los Angeles County

Abstract

The current data from The National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) shows that, in Los Angeles County, 670 deaths were involved in a motor vehicle traffic crash in 2018 [1]. There is evidence that some drivers in California have accepted the practice of drinking and driving [2] even though there is a perceived high risk of arrest [3,4]. This situation may actually be underestimated due to underreporting of actual alcoholimpaired driving [5].Los Angeles County has a population size of just over 10 million inhabitants. In addition, there are 471,000 people who commute into Los Angeles County for employment [6]. Any of these people could have been one of the 670 alcohol-related fatalities in 2018 [1]. Preventing, if not mitigating alcohol-impaired driving in Los AngelesCounty can be achieved by applying countermeasures, such as regulations, court monitoring, offender treatment and monitoring, and enforcement [7]. For example, the latter has recently been shown, in the City of Los Angeles, to decrease the number of crashes, up to a week after, when utilizing low staffed sobriety checkpoints [8].

Impact of easing COVID-19 safety measures on trauma computed tomography imaging volumes

“…In the present analysis, we found an increased rate of assaults (44% increase) and overall penetrating trauma (also a 44% increase) in the POST period compared to the PRE period, which coincide with increased firearms sales associated with the COVID-19 pandemic [ 28 – 31 ]. In addition, this study found a 32% increase in motor vehicle collisions, which may be partially explained by other studies finding an increase in risky driving behaviors including driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, and failure to wear seatbelts in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available [ 32 , 33 ]. While this data is concerning, further multicenter studies are needed to confirm the generalizability of these trends and attempt to elucidate if there are any opportunities for primary prevention to curtail these concerning findings.…”

Driving under the influence of alcohol during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Our study has shown that, overall, during the COVID-19 lockdown, the number of traffic tests was much smaller (5.29 v 8.52 cases/day), as found by other studies. For example, Apodaca et al found a more than 40% decrease in March and April 2020 compared to the same months from 2019 in the number of blood alcohol tests performed in Los Angeles County [10] .…”

“…Preliminary studies have shown that the restrictions generated by the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the pattern of BrAC results in drivers. For example, Apodaca et al showed a significant decrease in the number of driving under the influence (DUI) BrAC tests performed in Los Angeles County in March-April 2020 versus 2019, associated with a substantial reduction in the number of DUI-related traffic accidents [10] . Beccegato et al, on the other side, suggested, using a case-control study, that chronic excessive alcohol and illicit substance abuse were more frequent during the COVID-19 lockdown [11] .…”