ABSTRACT
Introduction Traffic accidents are known to be strongly associated with alcoholic intoxication, so many countries enforce a legal limit on the blood alcohol concentration of drivers. Epidemiological studies have so far been mostly based on blood-or breath-alcohol values measured at the time of the accident (Kastrup et al. 1983, McDermott and Hughes 1982, Vine and Watson 1983, Woodward 1983, Blanc et al. 1980, Got et al. 1984). Only a few authors have tried to evaluate to what extent the presence of alcohol in the blood might be related to chronic heavy drinking (Pikkarainen and Pentilla 1980, Murat et al. 1980, Murat and Weill 1985, Dunbar et al. 1985).
