Polls to Assess Drunk Driving Have Blind SpotMay 9, 2008; Page A11
By CARL BIALIK
New Surveys Are Bedeviled by Their Reliance On Self-Reporting About Bad Behavior
Would you necessarily know after you'd knocked back a few beers if you were driving while legally drunk? And, if you knew you had crossed that line, would you admit it to a stranger on the phone?
New surveys seeking to quantify the drunk driving on American roads rely on the answer to both questions being yes. Depending on how people were questioned, either 5% or 15% of the nation's adults own up to driving while intoxicated in the past year. And the reliability of the data is further undermined by the human desire to comply with social norms -- in this case, to avoid seeming like a reckless boozer, even in conversations with anonymous pollsters.
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Would you necessarily know after you'd knocked back a few beers if you were driving while legally drunk? And, if you knew you had crossed that line, would you admit it to a stranger on the phone?
New surveys seeking to quantify the drunk driving on American roads rely on the answer to both questions being yes. Depending on how people were questioned, either 5% or 15% of the nation's adults own up to driving while intoxicated in the past year. And the reliability of the data is further undermined by the human desire to comply with social norms -- in this case, to avoid seeming like a reckless boozer, even in conversations with anonymous pollsters.
. . . . . . .
Read Full Article
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