Drinking and driving prevention seems to be most successful when it engages a broad variety of programs and interventions. In Salinas, Calif., for example, a program combining highly publicized sobriety checkpoints, responsible beverage service training, underage drinking controls, limits on alcohol availability, and media advocacy succeeded 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. Those programs featuring only sobriety checkpoints, such as Avoid, a California program in which enforcement agencies within an area team up to conduct highly publicized sobriety checkpoints, have not been proven effective in the long run. Over the short term, however, the Avoid program has led to an increase in DUI arrests and decrease in crash numbers, according to Marilyn Sabin, Assistant Director of Operations in California's Office of Traffic Safety. A program targeting youth, named Every 15 Minutes after the incidence of deaths in alcohol-related crashes (one every 15 minutes when it was initiated, in the early 90s), has become popular in California schools. In this program, volunteers reenact alcohol- related crashes and read the obituaries of students selected as DUI "victims" in order to make the dangers of impaired driving more real for students. While many schools have implemented the program, there is still no conclusive evidence that Every 15 Minutes has led to decreases in alcohol-related crashes and fatalities.
Abstract