This study reports on the impact of a "drink driving education program" taught to grade ten high school students. The program which involves twelve lessons uses strategies based on the Ajzen and Madden theory of planned behaviour. Students were trained to use alternatives to drink driving and passenger behaviours. One thousand seven hundred and seventy-four students who had been taught the program in randomly assigned control and intervention schools were followed up three years later. There had been a major reduction in drink driving behaviours in both intervention and control students. In addition to this cohort change there was a trend toward reduced drink driving in the intervention group and a significant reduction in passenger behaviour in this group. Readiness to use alternatives suggested that the major impact of the program was on students who were experimenting with the behaviour at the time the program was taught. The program seems to have optimised concurrent social attitude and behaviour change. (A)
Abstract