Efforts to understand the influences of alcohol upon precrash behaviors have relied primarily upon controlled experiments and reconstruction of precrash events through analysis of accident records. As a result, it is clear that alcohol is highly correlated with highway crashes, but less apparent are the behavioral decrements responsible for those accidents. This paper discusses some parallels between epidemiological data, accident analyses, laboratory experiments, instrumented car research, and some preliminary analyses of on-road driving performance obtained unobtrusively. The relationship between alcohol influences upon reaction time, braking performance, and stopping behavior are discussed.
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