Abstract:

Purpose: Previous studies have shown that there is a relationship between alcoholic driving and/or drug-affected driving (AUAK) and increased risk of death and injury in traffic accidents. The aim of this study is to investigate alcohol concentrations (BACs) in the blood of drivers who are suspected of being alcoholic in the road control after a traffic accident in four major cities in Turkey. Method: In this study, we reverse the laboratory records for BAC of drivers in four major provinces of Turkey (Van, Manisa, Diyarbakır and Samsun) for five years (1 January 2015 - 31 December 2019). Results: In three hundred and forty two cases (7.1%), the BACs were above the marginal value (0,01 g/100 mL). 11.3% of the cases sent for the determination of alcohol are women, 88.7% are men, and the average age is 35.3±13.1. In three hundred and forty-two positive incidents, in 58.8% of incidents, the BACs were above 0.101%. The BAC positive of the events was 9.4% in Manisa, 6.3% in Van, 5.3% in Samsun and 5% in Diyarbakır. 4.4% of women (n=24) and 7.4% of men (n=318) found BAC positive (p<0.05). Result: This study is one of a limited number of multi-centric studies in this field; the study has concluded that zero tolerance to driving alcoholic vehicles in traffic, increased the resistance of penalties, and the wider use of road-side scanning tests.

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