What shall we do with the drunken sailor?: Effects of alcohol on the performance of ship operators

The purpose of this study was to specify the effects of alcohol on the performance of ship operators as a contribution to the development of new strategies against the risks of alcohol in water traffic. The nautical performance of 21 captains before and after alcohol consumption was assessed on a ship piloting simulator. The simulated scenarios represented passages of a container vessel through the German Bight. Performance was examined by nautical instructors according to standardised protocols. Mean (S.D.) blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) of 0.100 (0.024) g/dl before and 0.100 (0.017) g/dl after the performance trial resulted in striking effects on the nautical performance. The categories most severely affected were foresight and analysis of situation (impairment in 18 of 21 cases), concentration (impairment in 16 of 21 cases), accurateness, risk disposition and navigation (impairment in 15 of 21 cases). Chart work, preparation and communication were impaired in 12, 11 and 10 of 21 cases, respectively. None of the participants were capable to operate the simulated ship with an adequate safety after ingestion of alcohol. From these findings, and in consideration of the well-established impairment of a multitude of mental and physical functions by alcohol, it can be concluded that even low BACs bear high risks in water traffic, a concentration above 0.1 g/dl will hinder a sufficiently safe performance of ship operators. This should be considered in alcohol education and legislation.     

Demographic and political components in the decline of British class voting 1964–1979

The weakening of the British class alignment since the early 1960s has been extensively documented in past research. This article seeks to identify components contributing to the extent of class alignment, so as to clarify what is that has declined, and when; and to speculate about the reasons for the decline and its implications for the future of the British party system. In fact only one component shows any systematic change over a fifteen year period, and this change can be placed quite specifically between 1966 and 1970. Several more recent events in British politics appear to have causes that can be traced to this original change.     

Presidential prototypes

The American public expresses considerable consensus on those qualities of character and performance indispensable to a modern president. Contrary to expectations, however, such conceptions of an ideal president (or presidential prototypes) generally failed to provide standards by which actual presidential candidates were evaluated. Across five complementary tests, qualities that citizens thought important for an ideal president counted no more heavily in their evaluations of presidential hopefuls than did qualities thought less important—with one consistent and striking exception. Conceptions of an ideal president did set the standards by which the incumbent president was evaluated, and quite powerfully so. In the final section of the paper, we provide several interpretations of these results, suggest how public conceptions of an ideal president are acquired, and speculate about processes of presidential appraisal.     

Public protection against misperceived risks: Insights from positive political economy

Citizens often misperceive the nature of risks they face and the impacts of alternative actions on those risks. For example, consumers may underestimate the probability of flood in their area, or they may underestimate the beneficial effect of passive restraints on the likelihood of automobile accident fatality. But recommendations that the government should mandate optimal purchases are often ignored by politicians or rejected in favor of direct public compensation. This paper uses some simple models of public choice to explain why other remedies are used; it explicitly accounts for the fact that the same ignorant consumer whose behavior would have to be constrained are the ones whom the politician must please. In a simple world-of-equals model, such consumer-voters may well favor the alternative devices of implicit mutual insurance and conditional payment. When voters are heterogeneous, the political equilibrium (if one exists) is shown to depend upon the distribution of voters by perceived net benefit of public action and of taxes. Public action may be least feasible exactly when it would do the most good.