Study on Evaluation of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Sri Lankan Traffic Police Officers Related to Examination of Drunk Drivers, in Two Most Populated Districts of Sri Lanka

Introduction: Driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol is one of the substantial predisposing factors for mishaps among road users. A traffic police officer will be the first authoritative personnel a drunk driver encounters in the legal system. The absence of accurate skills and knowledge of these officers impedes the structuring of legal procedures and may lead to miscarriage of justice. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of Sri Lankan traffic police in handling and managing an alleged case of driving under influence of alcohol. Methods: This was a descriptive cross sectional study carried on a sample of 384 traffic police officers attached to the districts of Colombo and Gampaha, through a questionnaire. Results: Out of 384, only 75 of police officers knew the correct preliminaries to perform before administering a breathalyzer test. 79.7% knew the correct instructions for using a breathalyzer, but only 3.4% knew the colour changes of the breathalyzer. Significantly poor attitude was observed among the police officers, regarding the importance of producing a drunk driver for medico-legal examination ( P = 0.001) Only 222 (57.8%) answered correctly that a drunk driver needs to be subjected to a medico-legal examination as early as possible. Significantly poor practice and attitude was observed in officers with longer service duration but no significant association was observed between ranks of officers and attitude and practice ( P = 0.199). Conclusions: The results of our study demonstrate that the knowledge attitude and practice on efficiently handling a case of DUI among traffic police officers is poor, even though all of them are engaged in DUI duties irrespective of their service duration. The need for continuous professional development programmes was highlighted.

His Neighbor's Wife

What is fair and equitable justice? Is the point of justice to deter crime, to punish those that commit crime, or to educate criminals so they can integrate successfully back into society? In this work of philosophical short story fiction, the country has chosen to adopt the “Law Of Vindication.” If a drunk driver hits and kills someone with their car, their punishment is to be hit and killed with a car. The same reciprocal punishments exist for all serious crimes. Furthermore, it is a crime to not assist the government, when necessary, in providing the reciprocal punishment. The parents of a murdered child MUST murder the child of their killer. In this story, the narrator is in an unhappy marriage and decides his best chance of getting away with killing his wife is to kill his neighbor’s wife and wait for the law of retribution to require that his wife be killed as punishment. Of course, things don’t go quite as planned, and the law is interpreted differently than he expects.

Prevalence of behavioural risk factors for road-traffic injuries among the Iranian population: findings from STEPs 2016

Background To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.6 in Iran, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of the distribution of risky behaviours regarding road-traffic injuries at national and sub-national levels. Little is known about the road-use vulnerability patterns of road-traffic injuries in Iran. The aim of this study is to describe the prevalence of self-reported human risk factors in road-traffic injuries using the findings from a large-scale cross-sectional study based on the World Health Organization’s stepwise approach to surveillance of non-communicable diseases (STEPs). Methods A cross-sectional survey study in 2016 assessed the road-use pattern and prevalence of risky behaviours of people more than 18 years old. In this study, we planned to recruit 31 050 individuals as a representative sample at national and provincial levels. In practice, 30 541 individuals (3105 clusters) from urban and rural areas of Iran were selected. Basic socio-demographic data, major behavioural risk factors such as seatbelt and helmet non-compliance, drunk driving and occupant in a car with a drunk driver were assessed through baseline interviews gathered through an Android tablet-based questionnaire. Results The overall prevalence of seatbelt and helmet compliance was 75.2% (95% confidence interval: 74.7–75.7) and 13.9% (13.4–14.5), respectively, at the national level. The prevalence of risk-taking behaviours such as drink driving was 0.5% (0.4–0.6) and for being an occupant in a car with a drunk driver was 3.5% (3.2–3.8). At the provincial level, the highest age-standardized prevalence of seatbelt compliance (89.6%) was almost 1.5 times higher than the lowest provincial prevalence (58.5%). In 63% of provinces, the lowest prevalence of seatbelt compliance was observed among people aged 18–24 years old. Conclusions In Iran, existing disease-prevention and health-promotion programmes should be expanded to target vulnerable subgroups that have more prevalent human risk factors for road-traffic injuries. Further research is required to investigate the context-specific proximal human risk factors and vulnerability patterns in Iran.

The Uncommon Ground: Drunk Drivers’ Self-Presentations and Accountings of Drunk Driving

The paper analyses the self-presentations of three convicted drunk drivers: two women and one man. It applies symbolic interaction theory to analyze how the interviewees account of themselves and their driving under the influence (DUI) convictions. The analysis shows how uncontrolled and unpredictable features of the data generating process impacts on the interviewees’ self-presentations. One interviewee, a 28-year-old man, uses his dog and tattoos to close-in on his problem with alcohol consumption. Another interviewee, a 61-year-old woman, uses legitimate cultural scripts of being a responsible woman to neutralize the fact that she has been drunk driving frequently for many years. The third interviewee, a 40-year-old woman, refuses to conceive herself as a drunk driver. Rather than taking responsibility for her DUI-conviction, she tries to relieve herself in the interview by blaming her DUI on her social surroundings. The paper demonstrates how qualitative interviews are sometimes unpredictable and dependent on diverse feelings and reactions and how drunk drivers, generally conceived as moral offenders, need intelligible, normative social positions to relate to their DUI.

Risk Behaviours for Traffic Accidents in 18-20 Years Young People Travelling with Drunk Driver of Timis County, Romania

The present research aimed to assess some predictors for experiencing traveling in a car with a driver who has consumed alcohol, in a group of young people, aged between 18 and 20 years, residents of Timis County, Romania. The study group of 1606 young subjects, 18-20 years of age, 51.4% pupils and 48.6% students, with girls being significantly better represented, was applied a transversal population study. Percents of 29.8% of boys and 28.4% of girls got 1-3 times in a car with a drunk driver, and 10.1% of boys and 6.5% of girls traveled in such circumstances more than 4 times. Boys tend to accept the risks of traveling in a car with a drunk driver significantly more frequently than girls. We identified some predictors for traveling with a driver who has consumed alcohol, such as the binge drinking model and the model of mixed alcohol and drugs consumption, the practice of alcohol consumption associated with vehicle driving by the father, as well as by friends.

Understanding Rousseau’s Forced Freedom Through Two Concepts of Liberty

How can someone be “forced to be free”? Why is the arrest of a drunk driver not actually against their will? This paper answers these questions by drawing parallels between Rousseau’s “Social Contract” and Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Two Concepts of Liberty”. The coherence of “forced freedom” depends on a specific understanding of “freedom”—namely Isaiah Berlin’s notion of “Positive freedom”. Positive freedom suggests that free actions are those which act in affirmation of a will rather than those acting in the absence of obstacles. Therefore, Positive freedom is concerned with the source of a will. Rousseau’s forced freedom is meant to be applied in cases of incongruence between an individual’s various whims, wills, and deep interests. Forced freedom does not act against a will but acts as a rationalization of an existing will to illuminate what it truly desires. In the case of the drunk driver, their implicit participation in society means that they must understand through some capacity why established drunk driving laws exist. An individual’s belief in Positive freedom is therefore necessary in order for them to internalize the coercion of the state and to allow themselves to be “forced to be free”.