Driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and/or medicines remains a key risk factor in road transport across Europe. Young drivers aged 18 to 24 years are particularly likely to be driving under the influence of such agents. Therefore, young people's risk awareness concerning (combined) use of alcohol, drugs, and/or medicines prior to steering a car, and their intentions to engage in such risky behaviour, emerge as relevant domains for improving road safety. The EU project DRUID is (among other goals) dedicated to elaborating new and promising strategies for risk communication on the alcohol/drugs/medicines issue to young drivers. The present report summarizes the results of a social marketing research approach, which was chosen to define appropriate risk communication measures for young drivers. A workshop with media experts, psychologists, social workers, police bodies and representatives from road safety agencies and governmental institutions was conducted to develop recommendations for appropriate media-based concepts for risk communication on the base of the DRUID outcomes. The recommendations of the experts served as input for the subsequent formative evaluation. A representative sample of 15- to 24-year olds in Germany was interviewed about (A) their personal experiences and attitudes concerning driving under the influence of drugs, alcohol and/or medicines, (B) the knowledge and motivational base for processing thematic risk communication messages, and (C) specific issues in media use and preferences for risk message contents and channels. Findings indicate that susceptibility to drink-driving and drug-driving applies to about 25 percent of young people. Permissive attitudes are more common among males and among formally low-educated individuals. Prospective drivers (mostly aged 15 to 17) display a slightly more positive attitude towards drink-driving and drug-driving than active drivers. With regard to talking and learning about DUI topics, strong preferences for peer communication were observed. In terms of important media channels, social network sites turned out as a promising pathway to reach out to young people. Overall, these and further results provide important foundations for adjusting DUI-related risk communication to low- and high-risk groups among prospective and active young drivers. The method of a scientific-based development, implementation and evaluation of road safety measures for young drivers as described in this report is transferable to all European countries. Limitations can be expected to exist for certain country specific findings about the target group. To what extent the results of this report are directly transferable, has to be verified case wise. Nevertheless, specific findings in one country may provide important clues for road safety measures in other countries. Cultural as well as legal differences and peculiarities, which may be typical for some countries but atypical for others, can only be assessed by separate country specific research. The questionnaire from this project may serve as input for a national survey. The present results for Germany provide a solid base for other European countries, to design, develop and implement appropriate risk communication on driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol for the target group of 15 to 24 year olds. (Author/publisher) This document is available at https://www.bast.de/Druid/EN/Home/home_node.html
Abstract