The relationship between serious injury and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) in fatal motor vehicle accidents: BAC = 0.01% is associated with significantly more dangerous accidents than BAC = 0.00%

Abstract

The severity of life-threatening motor vehicle accidents increases significantly at blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) far lower than the current US limit of 0.08%. Lowering the legal limit could save lives, prevent serious injuries and reduce financial and social costs associated with motor vehicle accidents.

Alcohol intoxication may be associated with reduced truncal injuries after blunt trauma

“…5 Prior studies investigating the relationship between alcohol intoxication and outcomes after MVC report similar but not entirely concordant findings. 14,15,18, 19 Plurad et al 15 performed a similar multicenter analysis of MVC patients who underwent blood alcohol screening on admission and correlated BAC to outcomes after dividing the cohort into negative (%.005 g/dL), low (..005 to ,.08 g/dL), and high (R.08 g/dL) alcohol groups. The authors noted no difference in injury severity among the groups but decreased mortality in severely injured patients with high BAC, whereas this study noted both decreased injury severity overall and decreased mortality in specific BAC groups.…”

“…Only about 5% of patients (1,769 of 37,635) were screened at admission, and when examining this subgroup of intoxicated patients, a trend toward decreased ISS and mortality were noted. Phillips and Brewer 19 reported an increase in both accident severity and serious injuries with higher BAC; however, this study included only accidents that involved fatalities.…”

Principales daños sanitarios y sociales relacionados con el consumo de alcohol

“…La cantidad consumida en cada ocasión se asocia a mayor riesgo de lesiones tras controlar por el consumo promedio 131,132 . Aunque algunos estudios sugieren que el consumo de alcohol y el nivel CAS se asocia a mayor gravedad de las lesiones, sobre todo en las lesiones de tráfico, otros no encuentran evidencias claras [133][134][135][136][137][138] .…”

Alcohol limits in older people

“…Because BACs lower than 0.05% already cause impairment [16]-and these effects might be exacerbated in the elderly-the best advice for older people might be not to drink and drive at all. As alcohol is a sedative/hypnotic drug, taking into account alcoholdrug interactions-especially with anxiolytics, sedatives/ hypnotics and opiates-is very important in the elderly population.…”