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Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access originally published online on December 19, 2005
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2006 41(2):193-199; doi:10.1093/alcalc/agh253
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Medical Council on Alcohol. All rights reserved

EVALUATION OF THE TEXAS 0.08 BAC LAW

D. M. GORMAN*, J. C. HUBER, JR and S. E. CAROZZA

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, Bryan, TX 77843, USA

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed at: Tel: +1 979 458 2236; Fax: +1 979 458 1877; E-mail: gorman{at}srph.tamhsc.edu

(Received 12 September 2005; first review notified 19 October 2005; in revised form 19 November 2005; accepted 22 November 2005)

Aims: The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects on alcohol-involved traffic crashes and fatalities of the 0.08 blood alcohol concentration (BAC) per se law introduced in the state of Texas in 1999. Method: Data pertaining to alcohol-involved traffic crashes and fatalities were extracted from two datasets: the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (for the period January 1995–September 2002), and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) reports of Alcohol Related Motor Vehicle Traffic Accidents and Casualties (for the period January 1995–December 2000). The data were analysed using time-series methods (ARIMA routines). The effects of the law on all drivers were assessed, along with the effects among gender, racial, and age subgroups and crash location (urban vs rural). Results: Separate time-series analyses were conducted with all alcohol-involved and fatal alcohol-involved crashes from the DPS dataset and fatal alcohol-involved crashes from the FARS dataset as the outcome variables. None of the effects for either the total sample or any of the subgroups analysed was statistically significant (this was true of both the FARS and DPS datasets). Conclusions: While there is a growing body of evidence that indicates that 0.08 BAC laws can be effective in reducing alcohol-involved traffic accidents and fatalities, the present study shows that this was not the case in Texas. Future research should move beyond the simple question of whether or not 0.08 BAC laws ‘work’ and instead explore in more detail the conditions, such as publicity and enforcement, under which the law does or does not contribute to a decline in alcohol-involved accidents and fatalities.


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