PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island’s traffic safety laws, particularly those involving drunken driving, are full of holes, a review by a national safety group says.

In fact, only four states have more missing or flawed highway safety laws, according to the study by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based coalition of consumer, medical and insurance groups.

The Advocates group compared each state’s highway safety laws with 15 “lifesaving laws” whose adoption it said has significantly reduce highway fatalities. Of the 15, it found Rhode Island missing six and having flaws in three others.

Only Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have more gaps in their safety laws than Rhode Island, the study says. (On the other hand, Rhode Island is part of a seven-way tie for fifth-worst.)

The study adds to repeated criticism of the state’s highway safety laws. In November, the National Transportation Safety Board put Rhode Island among three states doing the least to curb drunken driving.

In recent years, the number of fatal accidents in Rhode Island was in the low 80s. The number dropped to 69 in 2007 and 67 last year.

The state’s highway safety office and Department of Transportation, attorney general and police as well as anti-drunken driving advocates have tried to address many of the flaws the study found, but despite years of efforts they have often failed to convince the General Assembly to tighten the laws.

Anti-drunken driving advocates achieved their last significant advance in 2006, when the legislature partially addressed a major loophole by raising the penalties for drunken-driving suspects who refuse to allow a chemical test for alcohol. That had, for years, allowed suspects to dodge criminal prosecution, and serious penalties, by accepting a modest license suspension. Janis Loiselle, administrator of the state Office of Highway Safety, called that change “a major stride forward.”

The safety advocates’ previous victory was in 2003, when the federal government threatened to withhold millions of dollars in highway aid if the legislators didn’t pass legislation making it a criminal offense to drive with a blood-alcohol level of .08 percent or higher.

Several auto safety-related bills have died in the state House of Representatives. Bills for this session are just being filed, and Larry Berman, spokesman for House Speaker William J. Murphy, said Friday that it’s too early in the legislative session to discuss their future. Murphy, Berman said, intends to hold hearings on the safety issues “and move forward once the hearings are held.”

In another aspect of drunken-driving enforcement, the Advocates group says that states should have both higher penalties for drivers who are extremely drunk and mandatory blood-alcohol testing for drivers of vehicles involved in fatal accidents.

Rhode Island has the first but not the second, so while very drunk drivers may be punished more severely, the best way of identifying them, blood-test results, may be missing. Hospitals normally do blood tests, but if a drunken driver doesn’t need hospital treatment, Loiselle said, “right now there’s no way to have you tested.”

Proposals to make blood tests mandatory for drivers in fatal accidents have been vigorously opposed by civil-liberties advocates who say that a forced taking of blood is an unacceptable search and seizure and invasion of privacy.

Rep. Douglas W. Gablinske, D-Bristol, has filed legislation for this legislative session that would let the police seek search warrants for blood, breath or urine if they have reason to believe a driver has been drinking.

In another area, motorcycle helmet laws, the state government has backed off for fear of losing what ground it has gained. The Advocates want mandatory helmet laws for all riders, something 20 states have now.

The Rhode Island law requires helmets, but only for motorcycle passengers and those 18 and younger. Proposals for a helmet law covering all riders have drawn hard opposition, here and elsewhere. Loiselle said the administration is concerned that if it tries for a stronger helmet law, it could find itself losing the passenger requirement.

A major anti-drunken-driving strategy that the Advocates consider essential seems unlikely to be used in Rhode Island. That is use of “sobriety checkpoints” where police stop all vehicles, or a random sample of vehicles, and check all the drivers for signs of drunkenness.

Federal officials says the checkpoints are effective, not because they lead to the arrest of drunken drivers , but rather because their existence deters people from drinking and driving. Thirty-eight states have laws authorizing checkpoints, although only a dozen use them regularly, according to the study.

However, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that checkpoints violate the state Constitution’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The U.S. Supreme Court reached the opposite conclusion, approving use of checkpoints based on a similar provision in the U.S. Constitution.

The study also criticizes states, such as Rhode Island, that don’t have “primary” seat-belt laws, meaning that the police can’t stop motorists for that reason alone. Bills to change that have drawn opposition from civil-liberties advocates who argue that it would provide the police with another basis for stopping minority group members. A series of racial profiling studies have concluded that black and Hispanic drivers are disproportionately stopped and searched by Rhode Island police.

blandis@projo.com