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by Henry Saffer Frank Chaloupka National
Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. This paper presents an
empirical investigation of the effect of a preliminary breath test law
on drunk driving behavior. A preliminary breath test law reduces the procedural
problems associated with obtaining evidence of drunk driving and thus
increases the probability that a drunk driver will be arrested. In 1985,
only 23 states had a preliminary breath test law. According to the theory
of deterrence, increasing the probability of arrest for drunk driving
will reduce the future occurrence of this behavior. The data set employed
to test the theory is a time series from 1980 to 1985 of cross sections
of the 48 contiguous states. Four highway mortality rates are used as
measures of drunk driving. The effect of the breath test law was estimated
using four independent variable models and 12 dummy variable models. The
four independent variable models were also estimated using Leamer's specification
test. The purpose of using these alternative specifications and Leamer's
specification test was to examine the breath test coefficients for specification
bias. The econometric results show that the passage of a breath test law
has a significant deterrent effect on drunk driving. Simulations with
these results suggest that if all states had a preliminary breath test
law, highway mortality could be reduced by about 2000 deaths per year.
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