Server training as a theoretical and legislative potential for preventing iintoxication and impaired driving was examined at length in the driving Summer 1986 issue of Alcohol Health & Research World (Mosher and Colman; Saltz; Vegega; Peters). An evaluation of effectiveness of such training is crucial. So many of the activities in countering impaired driving are based on understandable emotion and a reliance on the purported deterrent effects of punishment. But the truth is that, even with stricter penalties and increased enforcement, alcohol-impaired driving continues as a destructive force in American society. Indeed, 1million arrests each year in the United States for Driving Under the Influence of alcohol (DUI) have not lowered appreciably the involvement of heavy alcohol use in fatal crashes or those producing injury or property damage (Fell 1983). An unwillingness by intoxicated people to change their driving plans is consistent with the impairment of judgment expected with heavy alcohol use. It is best, therefore, to intervene with a driver before judgment is seriously impaired. Furthermore, it is op1imal 10 intervene for behaviour change at the time when the change is most immediately relevant. Just as point-of-purchase advertising is the most influential marketing strategy, the best time to influence socially responsible drinking is at the place where alcoholic beverages are sold . Server intervention, a prevention strategy that meets this criterion, contrasts with standard educational and awareness messages, which are delivered to a person when sober but have little influence on the behaviour of that person when intoxicated. 64 Although server intervention training has intuitive appeal, its effectiveness must be the ultimate criterion for large-scale application. Tothatend, two of the authors of this article evaluated the effectiveness of a program entitled "Training for Intervention Procedures by Servers of Alcohol" (TIPS). This program was developed by Morris E. Chafetz, the founding director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and a member of the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving. TIPS contains the critical elements for successful server intervention training identified by Mosher (1986) and is representative of server intervention programs in general (see Vegega 1986). The research assessed the potential of server intervention programs such as TIPS to decrease DUI by comparing trained servers with untrained servers in regard to (1) the exit blood alcohol concentration (BAC) levels of their patrons and (2) the amount of gratuities received. A recent report by the National Restaurant Association (Adelman 1985) revealed that the amounts of money restaurant customers leave as gratuities depend on their satisfaction with the service received. Since server intervention requires that servers pay closer attention to their patrons, increased gratuities may result. This, in turn, may influence the servers' motivation to apply their intervention skills. (Author/publisher)
Abstract