Blind Spot in DUI Countermeasures - Dependent Drivers Are Out of Traffic Safety System Measures

Abstract

Driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs causes annually many serious road accidents. In the Czech Republic, there is a number of social workers and psychologist who are dealing with people that have problems with substance abuse. So we ask those professionals whether and how they discuss the topic of DUI and whether it is a part of the psychotherapeutic intervention with their clients. The aim of this work was to find out whether professionals working with substance abuse come across the topic of DUI and how they work with this topic (interventions, therapeutic techniques, recommendation). In case they find out client's misconduct what is their procedure. We conducted semi-structured interviews, these interviews were transcribed, and the text was analyzed by using interpretative phenomenological analysis. We approached all major organizations working with substance abuse in the Czech Republic. One person from each institute was self-selected for interview. Professionals we approached stated that they come across the DUI topic rarely and they don't try to work on this topic with the client. Clients tend to ignore the risks of DUI and possible penalties. When the professionals notice that their client is repeatedly involved in DUI they have conflicting tendencies because they should inform the authorities, but they do not. They do not want to harm their relationship with the client and partly support DUI in their clients as it is very difficult to find a job and then get rid of addiction without driving. We recommend a systematic change that would allow putting this blind spot right by using a different approach in these organizations.