WIDAC - Council Meeting
(October 12, 2023) - Traffic Safety Statewide Survey Results

A researcher presented a new WTSC survey on peoples’ behaviors and impressions of Washington state traffic, with several responses pertaining to cannabis use and driving.

Here are some observations from the Thursday October 12th Washington State Impaired Driving Advisory Council (WIDAC) Council Meeting.

My top 3 takeaways:

• WIDAC members said goodbye to a retiring member ahead of a presentation on the Traffic Safety Statewide Survey.
  • Facilitated by the Washington Traffic Safety Commission (WTSC), WIDAC represents a hub for agencies and organizations working to reduce impaired driving. They maintain various data dashboards which cover surveys on speed observation and a school zone speed survey at time of publication. The council last convened on July 20th. 
  • The Traffic Safety Statewide Survey was commissioned by the council and included responses from thousands of Washingtonians on their driving behaviors and perceptions of the driving behaviors of others, including questions about “drug influenced” driving.
    • On April 13th, WIDAC members heard about Re-Evaluating The Prevalence of Poly-Drug-Positive Driving in Washington from WTSC Research and Data Division Research Associate Max Roberts. He looked to improve the accuracy of how officials assessed when driving was impacted by one or more substances, and found that even with modifications removing some duplicative reporting, traffic fatality data on drug testing showed a pattern of increasing prevalence of poly-drug incidences.
    • In the council meeting, WTSC Research Director Staci Hoff noted Roberts’ work “to improve our impaired driving drug data is coming to an end. And that's what we're working on right now is to update all of our files back to 2012 with this improved information.” This had led staff to consider the terminology officials used “because we went through this big effort—especially around the time we legalized cannabis—to say ‘drug positive,’ not ‘drug impaired’ and it's not quite drug impaired yet.” Hoff relayed that they “landed on ‘drug influenced’ right now, which…we're more confident than drug positive,” though she doubted that by “looking at just toxicology data are you going to get at that behavioral impairment” (audio - 1m).
  • Before the presentation on the survey results, Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Public Health Education Liaison Mary Segawa—a longtime representative for the agency on WIDAC—told the group it would be her last meeting with the council before retirement the following month. Segawa announced her replacement, Washington State Department of Health (DOH) Health Education Supervisor Kristen Haley, whose first day would be November 1st. Edica Esqueda, WTSC Impaired Driving Program Manager, thanked Segawa for her contributions to the council (audio - 1m).

• WTSC Research Director Staci Hoff went over the 2023 results of the Traffic Safety Statewide Survey and expressed surprise at responses to a few questions on drug influenced driving (audio - 13m).
  • Considering the results from the 2023 Traffic Safety Statewide Survey, Hoff described the “background on the survey development itself” which “start[ed] about three years ago.” The survey was designed by researchers with the Montana State University (MSU) Center for Health and Safety Culture (CHSC), and “ended up being a 104 question survey, takes anywhere from 12 to 18 minutes for a respondent to complete it.” CHSC researchers then brought questions to counterparts at the the Washington State University (WSU) Social and Economic Sciences Research Center (SESRC) and together completed a methodology with “our address based sampling [ABS] portion of our method to make sure that our results are comparable…to the state as a whole.”
  • The survey had been conducted between March and August by staff at Market Decisions Research, whom Hoff mentioned had “been a great partner doing fantastic work with the survey…what sets them apart is not just doing the survey and giving us the data, but all the data products that they created and the analysis that they did on their behalf, so that I can…share those instead of holding on to the data for months while I do that analysis myself.”
  • Hoff continued by describing survey sampling, telling the council the firm had combined ABS “with an online convenience panel sample so that we could fill demographic gaps that occur…and then also target specific oversampling in age groups, demographics, counties when it comes up.” She said that “three waves” of survey invitations had been issued, described as “a push to web, which means you get an invitation in the mail with the QR code or website where you go to actually complete the survey.” Hoff believed the company to be “very comprehensive in terms of getting our survey respondents” and highlighted the data compendium, which was “basically every little thing in analyzed format and a full report…which is what I'll share some portions of.”
  • “Our goal is to get 10,000 completes every year, and we plan on doing this every year, at least for the foreseeable future,” Hoff remarked. There’d been “10,964 survey completes,” along with “a 20% response rate, which is really great for that kind of method,” and she’d found “just anecdotally, people really want to talk about traffic safety.” She felt the public “want[ed] to be heard” on the subject, and shared how there’d been “almost 6,000 of those address space sampling surveys, and another 5,100 from the online panel.”
  • According to Hoff, there had been a “robust” response rate around the state from each Target Zero region, except for region 15—comprising four east-central Washington counties “notorious for having small survey responses to begin with”—that had only 368 respondents. She said because of this “some of our county level analysis is not very robust at this stage,” but conducting the survey annually would help them: “in about three years, we will have a more robust estimates for even our smallest counties.”
  • Hoff noted the full report would include 18 infographics, then shared general traffic responses and trends before discussing drug influenced driving questions.
    • She indicated, “52%, more than half, actually took some action to prevent an impaired driver from, from driving,” and question language built “on that to give examples such as finding an alternative ride, letting them sleep at your house. So, it's not a matter of, ‘hey I said something and they drove anyway,’ these are true interventions.”
    • “Reported behavior…what people actually do, versus perceived behavior, or what others in your community think you do,” showed the “numbers [were] pretty consistent between all surveys that I see” on self-reported drinking and driving.
    • Responses on “driving within one hour….of consuming cannabis” showed that “four percent” of drivers had done so. “Although 63% of the community believe that people do that at least sometimes or more, and in reality, it's five percent. So, this is pretty interesting data about how highly we think of each other, versus what they actually are, actually behaviors.”
  • Hoff said there were “interesting” responses when people were asked “how likely a driver will get caught by police for…DUI [driving under the influence], how likely it is…a driver caught by police for DUI will be prosecuted, and do you support or oppose police enforcing” those laws. Ranking activity by the “percent that find it very or extremely dangerous,” Hoff invited comments from the group. People pointed out concerns over speeding were “so low and, and…that [was] a major driver of our fatality numbers in the last couple years,” and that “people think cell phones are more dangerous than DUIs.” She hoped they could help “fix that, and I think it's because we've done a lot of work in distracted driving” awareness.
  • Respondents who considered driving after cannabis use either very or extremely dangerous followed a “similar pattern as” responses for “alcohol after two drinks.” There were “only 61% that find it very/extremely [dangerous],” but Hoff was reassured that there was “increasing grade across seriousness of the population, something that's…good to see for cannabis.” The substance category of greatest concern was “using potentially impairing prescription drugs” before driving, which outpaced responses on two alcoholic drinks. Hoff admitted, “this awareness of prescription drug danger and driving [was] not expected.”
  • While the majority believed police might catch impaired or distracted drivers, there was “a sizable proportion in all of these that do believe it's not likely or even slightly likely” police would catch someone doing this. “Only a quarter of respondents believe that it's very or extremely likely to be busted…and what I also found surprising, it was very similar between alcohol and cannabis.” Demographic groups she emphasized on this topic were (audio - 5m):
    • “18 to 34 year olds more than other age groups believe that it's very/extremely likely to be caught for DUI.”
    • “Hispanic and AIA (American Indian Alaska Native), and Black people also, compared to other racial categories, White and Asian people, also think it's very likely/extremely likely to be apprehended for DUI.”
  • When answering questions on the likelihood of prosecution for impaired driving, “a lot of people don't know because they haven’t interacted with the…criminal justice system. So that's about a third but” Hoff felt this was “a weird question” that nonetheless revealed “interesting information.”
  • On the topic of whether respondents wanted police enforcement of various driving offenses, support was strongest “for DUI alcohol, a little lower for DUI cannabis, but what's interesting…people feel that cell phone use is the most dangerous thing drivers can do, and yet they” gave it “one of the lower numbers in terms of strongly supporting cell phone use enforcement. So, there's just some head scratchers in this data.” She added:
    • “Males slightly more likely to oppose DUI enforcement than females.”
    • “18 to 34 year olds were the ones that felt like they were most likely to get apprehended” and were “the ones that are more likely to oppose DUI alcohol enforcement.”
    • “All of the racial/ethnic groups besides White and non-Hispanic [were] much more likely to strongly oppose DUI alcohol [and cannabis] enforcement then White or non-Hispanic populations.”
    • “Slightly lower rates of being strongly opposed to...DUI cannabis then we see for alcohol DUI…not a big difference, but it's there.”

• A few council members raised several questions about the survey data and analysis including whether respondents were forgiving of their own driving behavior, bias around enforcement, and use of drugs or cell phones.
  • Segawa was curious about “perception on the impairing drugs,” and whether people were using cell phones while driving less “but they may be going out to dinner, and having a drink, and so just wondering if they might be excusing their own behavior.” Hoff responded “that'll take some more time” but believed the data would allow greater analysis of how people’s self-reported behavior related to their impression of other drivers’ actions. She suggested, “we'll try to do it before the end of the year when you leave” (audio - 1m).
  • Linda Thompson, Washington Association for Substance Misuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Board Member and Greater Spokane Substance Abuse CouncilExecutive Director, said “we know in the criminal justice system that BIPOC—Black, Indigenous and other People of Color—have higher rates of arrests and different things,” asking if that had been considered when looking at response rates and “the fact that the criminal justice system is a general opposition” (audio - 2m).
    • Hoff explained there were some other self-reported figures like whether a respondent themselves had received a citation, “and I can… tell that some of the survey responses [were] being manipulated in a way to make it look really extreme. So we have to dig into that self-report bias a little bit.” She speculated that analysis needed to go beyond survey data to include “like actual citations being issued.” She further expected questions on citations received would be revised in future surveys “so you can't give someone the option to have six…I know it's possible, but definitely not at the frequency it was reported in our survey.”
  • Daniel Cooke, Washington State Department of Licensing (WA DOL) Licensing, Endorsements, and Traffic Safety Administrator, inquired about opinions on impairment from prescription drugs based on age groups (audio - 1m).
  • Cooke felt it would be beneficial to “actually control for the responses related to…opposition to enforcement to…see if there's just general opposition to enforcement.” He suggested deeper analysis “where we have variation in…specific subject areas to see really what's going on” (audio - 1m).
  • Cooke also considered there was potential for confusion around the number of citations a person reported, and the number of occasions on which they’d been stopped by law enforcement, regardless of any citations issued. “I would not count the number of citations, I would count the number of occurrences,” he said. Hoff promised to follow up with him as she planned to improve questions on the topic in subsequent surveys (audio - 3m).
  • Thompson brought up opioid awareness and its impact on survey responses (audio - 2m).
  • Washington State Patrol Government and Media Relations Office Captain Deion Glover suggested asking “have you been stopped for a DUI investigation” in future surveys could yield better data than asking about citations, which he suggested might not have been issued depending on policies in different jurisdictions (audio - 3m).
    • He also argued for the possibility that cell phone use while driving was “something during the daytime, it's easy to be seen…and not everybody understands what impairment driving looks like.” He suspected that “everybody realizes DUIs are very dangerous, especially with cannabis and alcohol, but they're hard to see during the day, or even hard to see at night because when a 911 caller calls in, they only maybe recognize weaving, or other crazy behavior, not the nuances that a law enforcement officer might pick up.”
    • He appreciated regulators having done “a great job of educating but…the ones that really cause us, and insurance [companies], problems” were people who “are on their phones constantly.” For anyone “driving on the freeway watching this person do this…wow, is it really impactful.” Hoff agreed the public could “really eas[ily] see distracted driving.”
  • Hoff planned to make a lengthier presentation on the survey and next steps during the WTSC meeting on Thursday October 19th.

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