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Assessment of the Impact of the 0.02 Percent BAC-Limit in Sweden

NCJ Number
175734
Journal
Studies on Crime and Crime Prevention Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: 1997 Pages: 245-258
Author(s)
T Norstrom
Date Published
1997
Length
14 pages
Annotation
On July 1, 1990, the legal blood alcohol (BAC) limit for driving in Sweden was reduced from 0.05 percent to 0.02 percent; to assess the impact of this reform, an intervention ARIMA- analysis was performed on traffic-accident data that covered the pre-intervention period from July 1987 to June 1990, as well as the post-intervention period from July 1990 to June 1993.
Abstract
The data came from the first school study of the Karlskoga/Degerfors project (Wikstrom et al., 1997), conducted at the beginning of 1992. Karlskoga and Degerfors are two neighboring municipalities in the County of Orebro in the southwestern part of Sweden. The correlation matrix for the 11 items was factor analyzed, and two factors for the boys and three factors for the girls were found to be significant. "Parental knowledge" and "parental concern" were two factors that emerged for both boys and girls. Asking for the parents' permission ("parental permission") was a factor of parental monitoring that emerged only for girls. The identified monitoring factors were related to social background factors, other family control factors, and the child's self-reported deviant behavior (criminal and other antisocial behavior). Explanation for the observed patterns of relationship are discussed. The discussion also notes that previous research on this topic has found that using measures of parental monitoring only on the basis of child interviews has its limits. 9 tables, 2 figures, 28 references, and appended description of the measures