Citizens' Movement Against Drunken Driving and the Prevention of Risky Driving: A Preliminary Assessment

• NCJ Number: 116883
• Journal: Alcohol, Drugs and Driving Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Dated: (January-March 1989) Pages: 73-84
• Author(s): M Wolfson
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 12 pages
• Grant Number(s): SES-8419767
• Sponsoring Agency: National Science Foundation
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: This paper is based on the ongoing research of the Project on the Citizens' Movement Against Drunken Driving at the Catholic University of America.

Annotation

This paper examines the nature and effectiveness of the recent citizens' movement against drunk driving.

Abstract

The anti-drunken driving citizens' groups (ADDCG's) have pursued three promising strategies that may affect the incidence of drunk driving and resulting traffic fatalities: changing laws, changing patterns of law enforcement, and changing public attitudes and beliefs. ADDCG's may also influence fatalities through other programs such as alcoholic-beverage server intervention, designated-driver programs, and safe-ride programs. A preliminary county-level analysis of the influence of such efforts on 1985 rates of fatal traffic accidents in U.S. counties was conducted. Two related measures of 1985 fatal crashes were used: total fatal crashes and fatal crashes that occurred on weekend nights or early mornings. Data from the Fatal Accident Reporting System of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration were aggregated to the county level to generate county-level counts of total and weekend-night fatal accidents, which were then divided by the population of each county to obtain the dependent variables used in the analyses, total and weekend-night fatal accident rates. Data on local ADDCG's were from the 1986 ADDCG survey. Multiple regression was used to estimate the effects of ADDCG characteristics and other factors on the outcome measures. This preliminary analysis yielded no evidence that the presence and selected characteristics of ADDCG's resulted in reduced county-level fatal accident rates in 1985. 4 tables, 1 figure, 37 references.