Legal and Illegal Substance Consumption and Traffic Accident Risk Perception Among Spanish Young People

Traffic accidents today constitute a major public health problem and Spain is one of the countries with the highest rates of drug consumption by drivers. Since risk perception is one of the factors that influence impaired driving behavior, the aim of this research is to study the relationship between the consumption frequencies of legal (e.g., alcohol) and illegal (e.g., hashish, synthetic drugs or cocaine) substances and traffic accident risk perception in Spain, and to evaluate whether there are any differences between genders in this regard. The study was carried out using a prospective cross-sectional ex post facto design based on an adapted version of an instrument used in several other studies into the same population. The sample size was 3819, with all subjects resident in Andalusia (Spain). The results show that those young adults who most frequently consume any of the studied drugs have a lower perception of risk than those who do not consume the same substances. For example, 41.5 % of hashish users thought that driving under the influence of hashish never or rarely causes problems. The highest perception of risk observed was associated with alcohol consumption, the lowest with hashish. There were also differences between genders. It was concluded that the higher the level of consumption, the lower the risk perception. The results obtained emphasize the need for more information campaigns and more severe penalties for driving under the influence of drugs.