HOUSTON — According to a published research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the grown number usage of ride-sharing apps was connected to a reduction in impaired driving and motor vehicle collision sentences in Houston.
Christopher Conner, MD, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and neurosurgery resident in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth, said the research is well-timed as more people are using ride-sharing apps.
“Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death and disability among young people, so anything we can do to reduce those incidents is going to have a massive effect,” he said.
The study discovered that ride-share volume had a notable association with the incidence of motor vehicle-related trauma, with a decrease in the rate of frequency by one-third for every 1,000 rides. The accident rate continued to decline as more rides happened.
Impaired driving convictions also declined in the years following the establishment of Uber in Houston. Before 2014, there was an average of 22.5 impaired driving convictions in Houston every day. After 2014, the average of convictions decreased to 19 per day.
“I think this was the biggest takeaway from the study. The data shows that ride-sharing companies can decrease these incidents because they give young people an alternative to driving drunk,” Conner said.
He hoped the results will allow people to see that while anyone can be affected by a motor vehicle collision, they do have another option proven to reduce their risk of injury, death, or impaired driving conviction.
The highest number of motor vehicle accidents happened on Friday and Saturday nights between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Data comparison from before and after 2014 revealed an almost 24% decline in impaired driving convictions traumas and the number of motor vehicle collisions during those hours.
Conner is confident this study will open the door to further trauma research. “It is an area that has been really understudied,” he said.