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Moulden, J. V.; and Voas, R. B. Report Washington, DC: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (1975) Alcohol is the one drug for which a reasonably well defined does-response curve for traffic crashes has been developed. The first of these curves was calculated by Borkenstien and his coworkers, based on their well known Grand Rapids Study, in which they collected breath samples from drivers using the road but not in crashes and from crash involved drivers. Recenlty, Hearst has calculated similar curves for all of the other crash/control studies. While these curves shown in Figure 1 vary significantly, at least in part, on the type of crash to which they apply, they are all similar in showing the normal dose-response relationship where low doses appear to produce little behavioral effect, while with increasing dosage, a more rapidly increasing behavioral effect becomes apparent. Below .05 percent blood alcohol concentration (BAC),there is little or no slope in these curves but the rise becomes quite steep in the region of .10 percent BAC and above. In general, the acceleration of the curve is steeper for the more sever crash.
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