Research to look at lowering number of drink drivers

Lowering the number of drink drivers in Australia is the motivation behind a new project led by USQ Associate Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele.

Associate Professor Rundle-Thiele received a 2007/2008 NRMA – ACT Road Safety Trust Grant worth $22,000, to conduct research into the public's knowledge of alcohol.

'The idea for this research came from a question that I put to some first year students, when I was teaching at Griffith University,' she said.

'I asked them to find out how responsible marketers were and some of them found that alcohol companies were not giving people full information and many people, for example, did not know how many standard drinks were in a bottle of wine.

'That gave me an idea and I decided to explore if Australian people could judge if they were over or under the legal limit.'

After conducting a survey, Associate Professor Rundle-Thiele said that the research uncovered some interesting results.

'With the help of two of my students we collected 200 surveys and in the data we found that a lot of Australians don't know enough about alcohol.

'In fact a quarter of them did not know how many standard drinks made the difference between risky and low level drinking.

'Also, people knew the drink driving level, but did not know how many standard drinks were in a glass of wine.'

Shocked by the results, Associate Professor Rundle-Thiele was determined to further her research.

'At the time we were going to present our findings at a conference, but I came across the NRMA grant and put in a submission for it in March,' she said.

'The proposal was to go Canberra and look at what people are doing in pubs and whether they are aware of how much they are drinking.

'We were awarded funding for this and also an online survey to find out what people knew about alcohol.'

The trip to Canberra is planned for September this year, when the online survey will also be available.

'Two months after we release the survey we will ask those who complete it the same questions and see if they have improved.

'At the moment people are just not informed properly.'

The NRMA – ACT Road Safety Grant program was established to enhance road safety for the ACT road-using community and has provided $17.3 million for some 280 wide ranging and innovative road safety initiatives.

Media Contact: Josh Ada, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 1628