Online newsletter Volume 1, Number 3: Summer  2003



A Wakeup Call to Get Mad All
Over Again

An Interview with Marilyn Sabin on the need to reignite DUI awareness

 

Marilyn Sabin is the Assistant Director of Operations for the California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS), where she has worked since 1976. She is a nationally recognized expert in traffic safety. Her current duties include the management of all operational aspects of grants and the 14 Regional Coordinators who administer them.

In fall of 2002, Sabin helped OTS to convene the California Alcohol Forum for state, regional and local law enforcement, alcohol awareness and education and traffic safety agencies to share strategies for attacking the problem of alcohol-related crashes on California's roads. As part of that forum, OTS presented a telephone survey of more than 400 young California adults, aged 19-25, who are the group most at risk for alcohol-involved traffic crashes. OTS also followed up with face-to-face interviews using questions modified from the telephone survey, which were videotaped for research purposes. The UC Berkeley Traffic Safety Center helped analyze the survey results and is working with OTS and other agencies on possible follow-up steps for the coming year to address this youth contingent.

More recently, OTS promoted the 3D (Drugged and Drunken Driving) Awareness Month in December of 2002. 

Sabin recently sat down with newsletter editor Phyllis Orrick to discuss the current state of driving under the influence (DUI) prevention programs in California. The interview follows in Q&A format.


After years of steadily declining as a factor in motor vehicle crashes, DUI is actually rising in frequency, or at best it is leveling off. Either way, the trend marks a turning of the tide for the worse.

Yes, the crash statistics have been getting worse, after years of steady declines.


How would you define DUI from a traffic safety point of view?

DUI is one of the major causes of fatalities and injuries on California roadways. It is the major cause of fatalities. When you take a look at the number of people who are killed and hurt in California, and you relate it to DUI, in 2001, we had 1,308 killed and 31,800 alcohol-related injuries. We have an awful lot of people who are killed or injured because someone makes a choice to drink and then drive. That's a choice that doesn't have to be made.  

 "When you're driving, you are in this huge piece of metal hurtling along at ungodly speeds, and you need everything that you possess in order to keep this vehicle operating in a safe manner."

During Drugged and Drunk Driving (3-D) Awareness Month in December, I am interviewed a lot on radio and in print. One of the things that I talk about is that when you're driving, that should be your task. You are in this huge piece of metal hurtling along at ungodly speeds, and you need everything that you possess in order to keep this vehicle operating in a safe manner. When you are in that car, driving that car is your job. That is what you should be doing. You should be paying attention; you should have all your faculties; you shouldn’t be messing around with other things in the vehicle. You should be concentrating on the driving at hand. People have a choice. They make a choice to drink and then get behind the wheel of a vehicle. It's one of the most preventable things that we have and yet it's still the largest cause of fatalities. That's what we see from our perspective as the problem.

 

California in particular has a lot of strong laws. It is consistently ranked among the toughest states.

Yes, we have a lot of good laws. I was around in the early 1980s when MADD started here in California. I was on the original board of directors and worked with Candy Lightner [the founder of MADD] and the Governor's task force [under Jerry Brown].

I saw the power in the legislature of MADD and the joint effort MADD made with law enforcement and safety professionals. Immediately after that collaboration came together, these bills started being passed. The governor's task force on alcohol, drugs and traffic safety came up with a number of recommendations, which were implemented. It was a time of an awakening. Now, I think, is a time for a reawakening. Back then it was a time of awakening for people in America, in California, that DUI was not a joke—not a laughing matter. This was not something we would joke about. Prior to then, a lot of people would say stuff like, "There but for the grace of God go I." That tone changed during those times.

The laws were strengthened; the enforcement was really heavy; the public information and the citizen advocacy groups were strong and coordinated; and people stood up and listened. Not that we have slacked off since then, because I don't believe that we have, but I think about what one of the young men in the videotaped interviews said. One of the questions was, "Do you remember messages about this?" And he was saying, "Well, yeah, but sometimes you hear the same thing again and again, and you sort of tune it out." (Listen the 45 sec. audio clip) That's why MADD is talking about getting "mad" all over again. And why you and I are discussing this reawakening. It's time to re-look at what we've been doing and see what we're missing and where we should go.

 

Isn't it true that as the laws have gotten stronger, they have become increasingly complex to enforce and carry out? When someone is stopped for DUI, there is an incredibly complicated series of processes they go through. And there are competing pressures on the courts and law enforcement agencies. In the media, too, there are so many other dangers to write about. Isn't all that distracting attention from DUI?

Absolutely. It really is. It seems to the public as if traffic crashes in general, and DUI specifically, are always going to be around; that they're a part of our life; and so these other dangers push their way into our lives and in some cases take precedence. People don't realize that in California, nearly half the number of people who were killed on September 11 at the Twin Towers are killed every year, and that's just in alcohol crashes. That's not counting traffic crashes from other causes. It's hard to keep that uppermost in everyone's mind. We haven't had a lot of changes in our DUI laws in the last few years. There is legislation being proposed to increase fines, fees and forfeitures for DUI to keep up with inflation. In total, seven bills addressing DUI sanctions have been introduced in this legislative session, up from two last year.


From the point of view of where public health and transportation intersect, DUI is one of the purest examples of that nexus. People don't have to drink. And if they register a blood alcohol concentration of a certain level, they are in violation of the law. It's like they have measles. The test was positive. There's no doubt. But people view it as always the other person's problem.

It always is the other person. The people on the road who have road rage say, "It's not me; it's the other person." You need to look at it from a public health perspective, and that's what we've been trying to do at OTS for many, many years; make traffic safety a public health issue. It's a health issue for everybody because in California you can't get anywhere if you don’t get on a roadway. Even if you're a pedestrian, you're around this mix of vehicles and bodies, and things don't go right all the time.

 

There are two parallel streams on this: enforcement and trying to change the culture with education, which straddles both. The enforcement side is still pretty robust in terms of laws, even if it may need to be re-targeted because of scarce resources, but the cultural side seems to be the one that is stalled.

It could be. One contributes to the other, though. In some cases, enforcement can change the culture. Sobriety checkpoints changed the culture when they first started. I heard it myself sitting at a bar before dinner. I would overhear people talking about the sobriety checkpoints, and all their ideas about where they were and how the police would move them around two or three times a night. That was not really true, but this was their perception, and it was changing their behavior. I think that still happens on occasion when we have roving patrols or sobriety checkpoints. They do affect people's behavior and the culture, but people have to know about them. And they have to have other options and alternatives to driving their cars if they've been drinking. There has to be a whole collection of things.

 

You talk about alternatives to driving. The rural parts of the state are very problematic in this regard. Yet they have more fatalities than urban parts of the state and more DUI fatalities. What is the alternative for them?
 

"We can't be a society where all of a sudden we've had some alcohol, and we have the keys in our hand, and we think, 'Now what?'"

One of the things I stress in the 3-D Awareness Month is planning ahead. We can't be a society where all of a sudden we find ourselves impaired, and we've had some alcohol, and we have the keys in our hand, and we think, "Now what?" We have to take three steps back and think in advance of that point.

When I talk about it, I talk about it in light of knowing that these situations are going to occur. In 3-D Awareness Month, which is December, you're going to have holiday parties. You know it's going to happen, so plan for it in advance. And what better gift could you give your friends than to say, "I'll keep us all safe. I'll be the designated driver."? In the rural communities that have fewer options than our urban communities, the designated driver, people looking out for each other, is still a useful tactic.


There was a group of researchers who talked to entertainment industry people and asked them to work alcohol awareness messages into dramatic scenes in TV shows and movies when they could, like mentioning designated drivers, to see if it would help. And they saw an incredible effect.

We've worked with the Entertainment Industries Council, which is what they have been doing, and I'm really pleased. Twenty or 30 years ago there were all kinds of movies and TV shows where people didn't wear their seatbelts and they were drinking and smoking and drinking and driving. I think they've cleaned it up a lot, but they still need to do a better job. Just the "Do the Dew" commercial I saw the other night on tv. It has a kid in a fast car who leaves his Mountain Dew on the hood of a car in the mini-mart parking lot, and he turns around, and the kid sitting next to him says, "What are you gonna do?" and he says, "I forgot my Dew," and he takes off. He hits some boxes and flips the car completely over and just as the guy standing there is about to drink the Mountain Dew, the kid grabs it. When they start, neither of the kids is wearing his seatbelt. So there still are things like that that make it look cool to drive fast, drive your car upside down, not have your seatbelt on. But the Entertainment Industries Council really has been responsible trying to get storylines where seat belts are used, and where there is no drunk and drugged driving.

 

Isn't another part of this problem the fact that we're not really sure of the nature of DUI offenders? We don’t know who is doing it, or how many people are doing it. It's one of those situations where more arrests can mean a program is working, or fewer arrests can mean the same thing. 

Yes, we can find statistics that deal with the "what" and the results, but getting to the "who"s and the "why"s and the "when"s, that's a little more difficult. That's why we focus on bars and server awareness, focusing on places and environments where so much drinking takes place. We have grants with Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC), and we have done server awareness prevention in the past, so servers know that we have enforcement out there.

 

Is the problem caused by someone going out to dinner and having three red wines and driving home, or is it the high school basketball players drinking all the beer before they get home?

To try to find out, some cities are doing studies of the point of the last drink—mainly in party communities in southern Los Angeles and the Bay Area. If the DUI offenders are all coming from one place, we need to show the people there what's happening as a result. This is where some of the server liability issues come into play. That's been an issue since the early 80s.

Another part of the pie is alcohol and drug rehab. That is another really important, intense one. That's something that hasn't been addressed a lot lately. We have coalitions with statewide groups like MADD and the enforcement agencies. We have first offender and multiple offender programs. The Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs monitors that, as do the counties.

 

You’re starting to try to reawake Californians about the dangers of drinking and driving.  Where do you think you will begin? 

I think that we need to take a look at what we have been doing and who have been our partners. I bet we must be missing some groups that we could bring into the battle to help us. We are all important in this effort and each small thing we do helps in the long run. I also think we should get back to personal responsibility and what each and every one of us can do personally about this. Just like MADD, I think we need to get mad all over again and personally do something about it.

 

Related Links:

California Office of Traffic Safety

3D (Drugged and Drunken Driving) Awareness Month

Mothers Against Drunk Driving

Entertainment Industries Council