Getting Away with Murder? A Social and Cultural History of Drunk Driving

描述（由申请人提供）： 这个项目的主要目标，第一次酒后驾车的社会和文化历史，是了解战略的有限成功，以控制什么可能是美国最严重的公共卫生问题。尽管经过几十年的努力，特别是自1980年母亲反对酒后驾车组织成立以来，醉酒司机仍然可以说“逍遥法外“。" 这项研究的具体目标是： 记录过去世纪酒后驾车的问题。 将反酒后驾车的努力置于其社会和文化背景中。 探讨对酒后驾车者（包括累犯）的处罚往往不严。 研究社会如何在保护公众健康与饮酒者权利之间取得平衡。 使用有关历史障碍的知识来帮助制定更有效和一致的反酒后驾驶策略。 将采用历史研究的标准方法，首先全面回顾相关的二级文献，在这种情况下，美国的酗酒史和其他公共卫生措施。这一审查，已经在进行中，已经允许PI。找出文献中的空白并构建研究假设。接下来，他将在大量的档案馆进行初步研究。这些主要来源，包括未发表的文件，会议记录和信件，将提供有关过去和正在进行的反酒后驾车努力的成功和失败的关键信息。研究结果将被制作成一系列学术文章和一本学术书籍，并将观众放在努力降低酒后驾车死亡率的历史障碍上。 该项目具有巨大的公共卫生意义。尽管自1980年以来一直在努力控制酒后驾车，但每年仍有超过15，000名美国人死于酒后驾车。尽管已经确定了大量可以进一步降低死亡率和发病率的行之有效的策略，这些死亡和更多的伤害还是发生了。通过确定更广泛地实施这些方法的历史障碍，这项研究将有利于积极分子，政策制定者和立法者关注加强反酒后驾驶的努力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary objective of this project, the first social and cultural history of drunk driving, is to understand the limited success of strategies to control what may be the most severe public health problem in the United States. Despite decades of efforts, particularly since the founding of Mothers Against Drunk Driving in 1980, drunk drivers, it can be argued, still "get away with murder." The specific aims of this research are: To document the problem of drunk driving over the past century. To place anti-drunk driving efforts in their social and cultural context. To explore the often lax penalties issued to drunk drivers, including recidivists. To study how society balances the protection of the public's health with drinkers' rights. To use knowledge about historical barriers to help craft more effective and consistent anti-drunk driving strategies. Standard methods in historical research will be employed, beginning with a comprehensive review of the relevant secondary literature, in this case the history of alcoholism and other public health measures in the United States. This review, already underway, has allowed the P.I. to identify gaps in the literature and construct a research hypothesis. He will next perform primary research at a large number of archival sites. These primary sources-including unpublished documents, minutes of meetings and correspondence-will provide crucial information about the successes and failures of past and ongoing anti-drunk driving efforts. The findings will then be crafted into a series of scholarly articles and a book for academic and lay audiences on the historical barriers to efforts to lower the death rate from drunk driving. This project has enormous public health relevance. Despite aggressive efforts to control drunk driving, particularly since 1980, over 15,000 Americans are still killed annually by drunk drivers. These deaths-and even more injuries-occur despite the identification of a large number of proven strategies that could further lower mortality and morbidity. By identifying the historical barriers to more widespread implementation of these approaches, this research will be of benefit to activists, policymakers and legislators concerned with enhancing anti-drunk driving efforts.