RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN DRINKING PROBLEMS AND DRINKING LOCATIONS AMONG CONVICTED DRINKING DRIVERS

This study examines relationships between drinking problems and the frequency of drinking in eight types of places within a sample of convicted drinking drivers. Drinking problems were measured by two instruments, the Mortimer-Filkins Questionnaire (MFQ) and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) Core Questionnaire. Data were collected from convicted drinking drivers who were ordered by the court to attend the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program (MASEP). Both the MFQ and the AUDIT were found to be more strongly related to the frequency of drinking in moving automobiles than to the frequency of drinking in any other type of place. This suggests that drinking drivers with severe drinking problems are more likely to drink in moving automobiles than are those with less severe problems. The strong linkage between severe alcohol problems and drinking in automobiles has important implications with respect to highway safety.