The research is being conducted through a collaborative study by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Ottawa, Ontario and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation of Bethesda, Maryland. A sample of 400 intervention offenders and 400 control offenders is anticipated. A companion study will evaluate the impact of the interlock per se on demographically matched offenders in another Province who do not have an interlock option. The highways have become the international commons where nearly all members of society meet. It's a place where both freedom and order need to find a good balance in order to maximize highway utility and minimize personal despair.
Alcohol use is involved in a third to a half of all road deaths in developed nations.
The pragmatic task for society in resolving the alcohol highway safety problem reflects both a need to encourage responsible behavior with appropriate sanctions, and a need to help solve problems which preclude responsible behavior. The interlock is perceived as a hopeful alternative which may help to further reduce recidivism. The difficulty resides in the period after interlock removal when recidivism rates climb back into rough parity with those offenders who were only suspended, but did not receive an interlock as a condition of probation. Clearly, the task for new programs which use the interlock device is to design a way to carryover the controlling aspect of the interlock to sustain the reductions in recidivism to the period after the device is removed. Prior to that time, the data recorder was an optional feature on the interlocks of some, but not all manufacturers.