The data for single-vehicle crashes gathered by the California Highway Patrol, suggests that crashes occur at diverse weather conditions and involve different age, gender, and ethnic groups (Kim et al., 2013). DUI arrest rates in California indicate that the problem accounts for a substantial share of local law enforcement efforts (MacLeod et al., 2017). Area-specific evidence on RTAs is also plentiful, which allows gauging the scope of the issue at hand. Over the last few decades, a considerable body of research has been accumulated on traffic accidents in the United States. In order to ensure that the scope of this research is specific enough, it will be limited to a specific area (the State of California) and a sub-area (Northern California). Prior to analyzing the extant literature on the subject and developing a hypothesis regarding the relationship between alcohol-related RTAs involvement and ethnicity, it is necessary to delineate the scope of the research. Therefore, there is a need to investigate why the rate of incidence of injurious deaths from motor vehicle accidents is not uniform across different ethnicities. It means that complex phenomena may underlie ethnic disparities in the risk of involvement in alcohol-related RTAs. However, Hispanics are at a lower risk for self-reported DUI than Whites and at a higher risk than Asians, and Blacks in the US (Delcher, Johnson, & Maldonado-Molina, 2014). Despite the fact that Hispanics are less likely to display harmful patterns of alcohol consumption, which are associated with a higher risk of traffic accidents, major epidemiologic surveys in the US suggest that it is an ethnic group that is related to the substantial incidence of alcohol-attributable crashes (Keys et al., 2012). Specifically, non-Hispanic whites and non-Hispanic blacks are much likely to develop lifetime alcohol abuse and dependence than Hispanics. A study conducted by Caetano, Vaeth, Chartier, and Mills (2014) shows that some ethnicities are more likely than others to consume alcoholic beverages. Numerous studies and government reports point to the fact that a likelihood of being involved in driving while under the influence of alcohol (DUI) differs across ethnic groups (Hallstone, 2013 Keys, Liu, & Cerda, 2012). The project will help to better understand whether members of different ethnic groups are at different risk of being involved in alcohol-related traffic accidents because of variances in their blood alcohol content (BAC) levels.Įven though considerable progress has been made during the last few decades in reducing the number of RTAs and especially alcohol-related traffic accidents, hospital and police records reveal that many ethnic and socioeconomic groups are still overrepresented in traffic fatalities (Sehat, Naieni, Asadi-Lari, Foroushani, & Malek-Afzali, 2012). The aim of this paper is to present a proposal for a research project on the role of ethnicity in alcohol-related traffic accidents. From the point of view of traffic injury prevention, it is clear that alcohol-related traffic accidents are an exceptionally pernicious problem that requires careful study and effective countermeasures. In the US, alcohol-impaired crashes accounted for 10, 228 deaths in 2011 (Ferguson, 2012). In addition to gender and age, alcohol-impaired driving plays a substantial role in car crashes. The findings of a study conducted by Morgan and Mannering show that there are “substantial differences across age/gender groups under different roadway-surface conditions and argued that drivers perceive and react to pavement surface conditions in different ways based on gender and as they age” (as cited in Kim, Ulfarsson, Kim, & Shankar, 2013). There are many factors that contribute to both the incidence rates of vehicle crashes and their severity. These tragic statistics call for a better understanding of traffic safety issues that have led to an increase in the American burden of deaths and injuries. Nonetheless, more than 30, 000 lives were lost to traffic crashes in the US in 2012 (Lee, Abdel-Aty, & Choi, 2014). Fortunately, recent efforts by federal, state, and local authorities and non-profit organizations have led to a dramatic decrease in traffic accidents in the US. If the current trend continues, RTAs will account for every fifth death worldwide by 2030 (Ernstberger et al., 2015). RTAs are the main cause of death for young drivers aged 15 to 29 years (WHO, 2015). A report issued by the World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that in 2013, traffic accidents claimed the lives of approximately 1.3 million people (WHO, n.d.). Road traffic crashes (RTCs) or road traffic accidents (RTAs) are a major cause of injuries and deaths both in the US and worldwide.
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