Administrative License Suspension: Does Length of Suspension Matter?

描述(由申请人提供)：行政许可吊销/行政许可吊销(ALR/ALS)法律规定，血液酒精浓度达到或超过非法限制的司机的驾照将被国家机动车部门立即吊销，这是交通法中应用最广泛的例子，在违章后立即进行处罚。自1978年明尼苏达州颁布第一部州ALR法律以来，ALR法律在阻止受损驾驶方面发挥了重要作用。许多研究表明，采用ALR法律与减少与酒精有关的撞车事故之间存在关联。ALR法律的力量通常被归因于制裁的实施速度有多快。因此，对ALR制裁的严重性(暂停期限)几乎没有给予关注。这一点意义重大，因为ALR引用导致的暂停时间在50个州和哥伦比亚特区有很大不同。虽然实施制裁的迅速是行政法的主要特点，但暂缓执行的时间长短可能对其效力也很重要。因此，悬架长度对ALR作为对酒精受损驾驶的威慑作用的有效性的意义仍有待确定。酒后驾驶刑期的长短可从两个方面影响酒后驾车：(A)通过阻止普通公众的酒后驾车而产生普遍的威慑作用，以及(B)通过具体的阻吓作用，通过立即阻止酒后驾车的违法者驾驶，从而阻止这些酒后驾车违法者再次犯下酒后驾车。到目前为止，还没有研究试图将这两个因素区分开来，以确定ALR法律在减少驾驶员撞车事故中的作用。如果我们拟议的研究结果表明停牌时间长短与撞车率之间存在很强的关系，这种区别可能对政策制定者很重要。与实际受到处罚的违法者相比，吊销驾照的时间长短可能更重要，因为它对所有酒后驾车的人具有普遍的威慑作用。这种区别对政策制定者来说可能意义重大。如果这样的法律的有效性通过以下方式提高 如果增加处罚力度(例如，延长吊销执照的期限)，那么这一行动将对州交通安全官员和政策制定者具有吸引力，因为延长吊销期限对州政府来说几乎不涉及额外费用。这项研究的具体目的是(A)确定在致命车祸中，与清醒司机相比，ALR悬挂长度与饮酒司机的患病率之间的关系；以及(B) 估计与ALR法律的具体效果相比，这种关系与总体威慑效果的关系程度，因为ALR悬挂长度与涉及酒精损害的驾驶碰撞有关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Administrative license revocation/administrative license suspension (ALR/ALS) laws, which provide that the license of a driver with a blood alcohol concentration at or over the illegal limit is subject to an immediate suspension by the state department of motor vehicles, are the most widely applied example of a traffic law where the sanction rapidly follows the offense. Since the first state ALR law was enacted by Minnesota in 1978, ALR laws have played an important role in deterring impaired driving. A number of studies have demonstrated the association between the adoption of an ALR law and a reduction in alcohol-related crashes. The power of ALR laws has generally been attributed to how swiftly the sanction is applied. Consequently, little attention has been given to the severity (length of suspension) of the ALR sanction. This is significant because the length of suspension resulting from an ALR citation varies substantially across the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Although the swiftness of the sanction application is the major feature of ALR laws, the length of suspension presumably is also significant to their effectiveness. Thus, the significance of suspension length to the effectiveness of the ALR as a deterrent to alcohol-impaired driving remains to be determined. The ALR sentence length can influence alcohol-impaired driving crashes in two ways: (a) through general deterrence by discouraging impaired driving by the general public, and (b) through specific deterrence by immediately preventing the driving of DWI offenders who are at an elevated risk for involvement in future alcohol-impaired-driving crashes and then deterring these DWI offenders from recidivating. To date, no study has attempted to separate these two factors in determining the role of ALR laws in reducing driver crash involvements. This distinction may be of importance to policymakers should our proposed study results demonstrate a strong relationship between the length of suspension and crash rates. Length of license suspension may be more important as a general deterrent to all those who drink and drive compared to those offenders who actually receive the sanction. That distinction could be significant for policymakers. If the effectiveness of such laws is enhanced by increasing the severity of the penalty (e.g., lengthening the period of license suspension), then that action would be attractive to state traffic safety officials and policymakers because lengthening suspension periods would involve little additional expense to state governments. The specific aims of this study are (a) to determine the relationship of the ALR suspension length to the prevalence of drinking drivers relative to sober drivers in fatal crashes; and (b) to estimate the extent that the relationship is related to the general deterrent effect compared to the specific effect of the ALR law insofar as the ALR suspension length is related to alcohol-impaired driving crash involvements.