‘The Best Drivers in the World’: Drink-Driving and Risk Assessment

摘要

The paper analyses risk behaviour as described by a group of convicted drink-drivers. Risk assessment is seen as a part of a complicated process reflecting moral values in specific socio-cultural settings and within a specific framework of time. The respondents’ retrospective accounts of their drink-driving are interpreted as part of moral identity negotiations, focusing on four dimensions: drink-driving as non-voluntary behaviour, drink-driving as strategic behaviour, drink-driving and control, and drink-driving and ‘normalcy’. Central to these negotiations is the fact that many respondents come from social environments (be that friend groups or workmate groups) where drink-driving is common and that they therefore do not regard—or did not regard—drink-driving as deviant behaviour.