Distinguishing Driving While Impaired (DWI) Offenders from among Alcoholics, Criminals, and Drunk Drivers

Abstract

This study examines the problems associated with differentiating among samples of alcoholics, criminals, and impaired drivers on the basis of personality and alcohol variables. Employing discriminant functions analysis, both with and without the inclusion of a measure of alcohol dependency, it becomes clear that the ability to identify impaired drivers from among samples of impaired drivers, alcoholics, and criminal offenders is based upon a linear combination of both personality and alcohol variables. Difficulties in discriminating among samples from these populations experienced by previous researchers is suggested as probably being due to the failure to assess the contribution of both personality and alcohol variables in the analyses, and to the fact that the impaired driver population distribution overlaps substantially those of criminal and alcohol dependent populations.