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Bringing DUI Home
Reports from the Field on Selected Programs
Drinking and driving prevention seems to be most
successful when it engages a broad variety of programs and
interventions. These can include sobriety checkpoints, widely
recognized as producing immediate, if short-lived, reductions in
alcohol-related crashes and fatalities, vehicle impoundment or
immobilization programs, alcohol server training programs, and
designated driver campaigns. Following are more detailed descriptions
of a few noteworthy programs.
Avoid
Avoid is a regional enforcement and public education program. Law enforcement agencies within an area team up to conduct highly publicized sobriety checkpoints. The name of the program refers to avoiding those law enforcement agencies by not drinking and driving. In the San Francisco Bay Area, all of the law enforcement agencies within the nine counties are participating. Other California counties and regions with Avoid programs include the Los Angeles metropolitan area and San Diego.
Avoid couples enforcement with publicity drives to communicate the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's "You Drink, You Drive, You Lose" message and the consequences of a DUI arrest. Foster City, CA, is one of the 23 agencies in the San Mateo County program called "Avoid the 23," whose motto is "You Drink, You Drive, You're Ours." Police officers go on roving patrols and set up sobriety checkpoints, focusing on holiday periods: Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Fourth of July. The program also works with MADD and local schools.
While there has been no evaluation of Avoid's effectiveness over the long-term, over the short term, "DUI arrests increase and crash statistics decrease as a result. It's very successful," said Marilyn Sabin, Assistant Director of Operations in California's Office of Traffic Safety.
In 1981, in response to a state senator's personal alcohol-related driving tragedy, the New York State Legislature passed legislation that allowed for the establishment of a Special Traffic Options Program for Driving While Intoxicated (STOP-DWI) program within each county. Each program is supported solely by the fines collected for alcohol- and drug-related traffic offenses, which average $22 million annually statewide.
The 1981 legislation also increased DWI fines substantially, starting with a $250 mandatory minimum for first time offenders, up from a $50 maximum. The legislation restricted plea bargains, required license revocation hearings for offenders, and imposed higher fines for offenders' refusals to test for blood alcohol concentration.
Traffic crashes, injuries and fatalities have all fallen in the years since STOP-DWI was authorized, according to NHTSA. The Oneida County, NY, STOP-DWI program has reported particularly good results, said Pam Beer, who is conducting a NHTSA-funded, nationwide review of comprehensive, community-based programs for the Governors Highway Safety Association. Beer reported that there is a high level of cooperation and enthusiasm among law enforcement personnel for checkpoints and education efforts, and the Oneida County program has made a point of recognizing law enforcement personnel for their efforts. The county District Attorney is active in the program along with the county probation agency, which is very involved in treatment and evaluation work. In addition, these partners are involved in victim impact panels, where convicted DUI offenders are required to hear from victims of alcohol-related driving crashes. Alcohol-related crashes and fatalities are declining in the county to such a great extent that it is not collecting as many DUI fines.
For more information, visit:
STOP DWI website
"STOP
DWI--A Model of Excellence" (NHTSA Traffic Safety Digest)
Victim Impact Panels
Victim impact panels were initiated by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Several MADD chapters in California, including the one in Orange County, administer them. One long-term evaluation found that offenders who had participated in victim impact panels showed low re-arrest rates, though the study also noted that a control group that received basic sanctions had similarly low re-arrest rates.
Typically, a first-time DUI offender is ordered by the court to attend a victim impact panel. The panelists, usually three or four of them, talk about how DUI crashes have affected their lives. As Ron Miller, Grant Coordinator for Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) California, described it, "These are real people right in front of you telling their stories in simple human terms. It affects people's hearts, and if we can change their hearts, we can change their minds and change their behavior." According to Miller, the experience changes DUI offenders' view of themselves. "They may have been caught weaving and gotten pulled over and arrested, and they see the situation as 'This is what happened to me.' They then come out of the panel feeling lucky that they didn't crash and didn't hurt anyone."
For more information:
A How-To Guide for Victim Impact Panels,
Resources page
PARTS—Preventing Alcohol Related Trauma in Salinas
In Salinas, CA, a program combining highly publicized sobriety checkpoints, responsible beverage service training, underage drinking controls, limits on alcohol availability, and media advocacy was implemented between 1993 and 1996. The project was initiated by the Prevention Research Center as a Community Trial Project, and an organization called Preventing Alcohol Related Trauma in Salinas (PARTS) was established in 1994 to carry out project activities. These eventually resulted in a broad community effort to change local alcohol ordinances.
PARTS is a coalition of community members, planning department representatives, city council members, substance abuse professionals, and school staff, among others. "It is an incredibly broad-based coalition—probably the best I've ever seen," Beer said. “They had data and could map where alcohol availability was highest. The amount of community participation was impressive. For example, Salinas women took on a Rite Aid that was selling liquor and were successful."
The project was a success not only in mobilizing the community, but also in reducing traffic injuries and impaired driving over a sustained period of time. Traffic crashes, injuries, and drinking and driving rates all decreased as a result of the project.
For more information:
A Long Term Community-wide Intervention to Reduce Alcohol-related
Traffic Injuries: Salinas, California by Roeper, et al.,
Resources page.
This program, named after the incidence of deaths in alcohol-related crashes (one every 15 minutes when it was initiated, in the early 90s), centers around staged activities on a high school campus, using volunteer students and parents as well as emergency response personnel and law enforcement officers. Originally a Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control grant assistance program in Chico, CA, Every 15 Minutes is now administered by the California Highway Patrol with the support of grant funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety.
The first day may begin with a person dressed as a Grim Reaper going from classroom to classroom selecting students, who are then declared "dead" and led out of the room. Back in the classrooms, the students' "obituaries" are read aloud by a law enforcement officer or counselor.
"It seems real because it's someone they know. The person may have been on the basketball team or in the choir," MADD's Miller says. Students led out by the Grim Reaper cannot speak for the rest of the day, though they can continue with their class schedule, and may be made up to look dead. Officers will also go to the students' houses and deliver "death notices" to their parents (visits that also serve as training for new officers). "Even though the parents know it's not real and were told this was going to happen, generally, they get very emotional," Miller says.
The same day, a DUI crash site is simulated near the school grounds using real emergency response personnel and equipment, sometimes even a helicopter. Make-up artists simulate injuries on the "victims," and video crews follow each of the students involved in the crash to various places: the hospital, the jail, or the morgue.
Student victims spend the night away to simulate their absence. Victims and parents both write letters telling each other what they would have liked to have said before the tragedy took the students' lives. The following day, the school holds a memorial assembly with caskets and flowers in the gymnasium. Guest speakers may share stories about how alcohol-related crashes affected their lives, and at the end of the assembly, parents and their children are reunited for the first time since the crash simulation and read their letters to one another. The emotions are often overwhelming for participants.
While many schools have implemented the program, there is less information about whether it has helped reduce alcohol-related crashes and fatalities. "Of course, in some instances, a school has the Every 15 Minutes program and one month later a student goes out drinking and driving and is killed. It's not 100% effective," Miller says. There have also been negative reactions: "There was one high school where parents said they didn't want to expose their kids in such a dramatic way. These parents wanted to think that there was no drinking problem at the school when there was," he says. The program is currently being implemented in high schools across California.
For more information:
Every 15 Minutes
website
Other Programs Directed at Younger Drivers
MADD's visitation program works with juvenile DUI offenders, who are ordered to participate by the court. It can involve attending a victim impact panel, spending time in a hospital's emergency room, or visiting the morgue, where they are taken into the freezer, shown tables with body bags (often other teenagers), and introduced to the coroner, who shares his experience with them. In Solano County, CA, a convicted DUI offender is brought in to talk to them about life in prison and living with the knowledge of being responsible for someone's death.
MADD's car crash exhibit trailer relies on shock value to instill an anti-drinking-and-driving message. It is built around a car involved in a fatal DUI crash. Around the trailer are photos from the crash scene and a blow-up of the written crash report giving details from investigators.
"When we were setting up the crashed car exhibit at the State Fair, I saw the crash scene photos and I thought, 'We're going to get some negative feedback about this,"' Miller said, "and we didn't. I watched people's reactions, and there would be a family walking along and a parent would see the trailer out of the corner of their eye, and then that parent's arm would reach out and grab their kid, and the parent would make sure that the kid saw it."
MADD recently received a grant from Mitsubishi Motors to build four more trailers and a grant from California's Office of Traffic Safety to pay to tow the trailers from town to town.
These programs have not been formally evaluated, but are popular for the memorable experience they provide participants.
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