In 2002, West Virginia became a Strategic Evaluation State for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Impaired Driving High-Visibility Enforcement campaign. The State implemented NHTSA’s model publicity and enforcement program in targeted counties to reduce impaired driving and alcohol-related fatalities. The State spent nearly $3.4 million on the campaign from 2003 through 2005, or an average of about 62 cents per resident each year. The campaign began during the July 4th holiday period in 2003 and was sustained for the next 27 months, running through September 2005. Statewide DMV surveys in targeted counties indicated that drivers reported significantly more often after the campaign that they had heard about impaired driving in West Virginia and had been through a sobriety checkpoint. Roadside surveys of driver blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) indicated a significant decrease in the proportion of drivers with a positive BAC at the end of the campaign compared to the same period the previous year. In addition, autoregressive integrated moving average analysis performed on the alcohol-related fatality trend for the targeted counties indicated a significant decrease by an estimated 1 fewer fatality each month. The total fatalities saved in the targeted counties totaled about 18 in the year and a half of data available following the July 2003 start of the campaign. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting