Child Endangerment and Traffic Safety

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然酒后驾驶是一种暴力犯罪，会导致许多人死亡或永久残疾，但带着儿童驾驶是不被认为是危害儿童或虐待儿童的。儿童危害法旨在保护儿童免受身体或情感上的虐待，以及那些将儿童置于伤害之中的人的伤害。带着孩子不小心驾驶和/或不顾后果驾驶属于这一定义，这是一个严重的问题。这项拟议的研究旨在超越观察一般的患病率，开始研究由于酒精损伤而危及儿童的司机的特征，但也将我们的研究扩展到鲁莽/攻击性驾驶。最重要的是，这项研究将开始检查儿童危害政策。目前，有几个州的法律至少在理论上解决了残疾司机危害儿童的问题，但很少有人对其有效性进行检验。具体而言，本研究的目的是：目标1：确定在运送年轻乘客时涉及撞车的酒精阳性驾驶员的情况和特征。目标2：确定年轻乘客因驾驶员表现出一系列典型的鲁莽和/或攻击性行为而死亡或受伤的案例，并检查此类事件的发生率和驾驶员的特征。目标3：探讨当前各州与酒后驾车有关的儿童危害法律的可能有效性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although drunk driving is a violent crime that leaves many dead or permanently disabled, driving impaired with a child in the vehicle is not typically acknowledged as child endangerment or abuse. Child-endangerment laws are intended to protect children from those who would physically or emotionally abuse them, as well as those who victimize children by putting them in the way of harm. Driving impaired and/or recklessly with a child in the car falls under this definition, and it is a serious problem. The proposed study aims to go beyond observing general prevalence rates and begin to examine the characteristics of drivers who endanger children due to alcohol impairment, but also extend our examination to reckless/aggressive driving. Most significantly, this study will begin to examine child endangerment policies. Currently, several states have laws that at least notionally address child endangerment by impaired drivers, but little has been done to examine their effectiveness. Specifically the aims of this study are to: Aim 1: Identify situations and characteristics of alcohol-positive drivers who are involved in crashes while transporting young passengers. Aim 2: Identify cases where young passengers are killed or injured by drivers displaying a set of behaviors typically defined as reckless and/or aggressive and examine the prevalence of such occurrences and the characteristics of the drivers. Aim 3: Explore the possible effectiveness of current child-endangerment laws relating to DUI across states.