Smoking ban increases drunk driving

Posted by Marc Hodak on February 12, 2008 under Unintended consequences | Comments are off for this article

In the forthcoming Journal of Public Economics, a pair of researchers conclude that smoking bans in certain areas increase the number of deaths due to drunk driving.

A rigorous statistical examination has found that smoking bans increase drunken-driving fatalities. One might expect that a ban on smoking in bars would deter some people from showing up, thereby reducing the number of people driving home drunk. But jurisdictions with smoking bans often border jurisdictions without bans, and some bars may skirt the ban, so that smokers can bypass the ban with extra driving. There is also a large overlap between the smoker and alcoholic populations, which would exacerbate the danger from extra driving. The authors estimate that smoking bans increase fatal drunken-driving accidents by about 13 percent, or about 2.5 such accidents per year for a typical county.

The ban on smoking in bars has had several unintended consequences. But this research is among the first to demonstrate that one of those consequences may be a higher death toll. And getting involved in an accident with a drunk person is far more damaging than second-hand smoke.

HT: Tyler Cowen at MR