NTSB recommends prevention efforts for substance-impaired driving
Washington – The National Transportation Safety Board on Nov. 21 issued recommendations (.pdf file) to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as well as individual states and territories, to increase efforts to reduce substance-impaired driving crashes. Substance-impaired driving, which includes driving under the influence of alcohol, illegal drugs and certain medications, has been linked to more than 10,000 roadway fatalities per year, according to an NTSB press release.
Among the recommendations:
- Establish common guidelines across all states and territories for post-crash drug testing, including a minimum number of drugs to test.
- Develop better guidelines for state testing and reporting of blood-alcohol concentrations of fatal crash victims based on NHTSA guidance (.pdf file).
- Require law enforcement agencies to collect “place of last drink” data following crashes to better identify locations that provide alcohol to minors and adults who are already intoxicated.
Substance-impaired driving is one of NTSB’s “Most Wanted” transportation priorities for 2013.
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