Social Support Is the Main Predictor of Young Adult Drinking and Driving

Posted 04/03/2007
A recent UMTRI study found two main predictors for drinking and driving by young adults:
- Having a circle of friends who condone getting behind the wheel after imbibing
- Believing there are few negative consequences for drinking and driving

The study, conducted by UMTRI researchers Ray Bingham and Jean Shope, surveyed nearly 3,500 young adults and various risk factors. Once the influence of alcohol use was factored out, two influences emerged as most closely linked to drinking and driving: social support and perceived risk.

Drivers who had greater than average social support for drinking and driving (friends who drink and drive) were more likely to drink and drive themselves. "A potentially important way of helping people stop drinking and driving might be to help them change their networks of friends so that they have friends who don’t drink and drive," Bingham says. "Similar approaches have been used in some programs to help people stop drinking."

Groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving conduct ongoing campaigns to make drinking and driving less socially acceptable. Other groups are using social marketing to redefine what is "normal" or "typical" behavior. A successful campaign created billboards that read "Most Montana Young Adults (4 out of 5) Don’t Drink and Drive."

The UMTRI study, which was funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, also found that drivers who believe there is little chance that they will experience the penalties of drinking and driving, such as arrest or license suspension, are more likely to drink and drive. Initiatives such as sobriety checkpoints, stepped-up law enforcement, and aggressive anti-drinking-and-driving publicity campaigns could change both behavior and beliefs.

UMTRI researchers also calculated how much factors such as social support and the perception of penalties contribute to the overall risk of drinking and driving. "If we could reduce peoples’ levels of both these risk factors by 50 percent, then we could expect the drinking/driving rate to go down by as much as 56 percent for women and 33 percent for men," Bingham says.

Bingham and his colleagues are the first to examine drinking and driving in this manner, but there are undoubtedly other factors that are strongly related to drink/driving behavior. But Bingham says this research is another contribution to efforts to find more targeted strategies to curb drinking and driving.

For more information, see the article, "Social and Behavioral Characteristics of Young Adult Drink/Drivers Adjusted for Level of Alcohol Use," in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, volume 31.