Youth Anti-Drinking-Driving Programs (From Drinking and Driving: Advance in Research and Prevention, P 226-249, 1990, R Jean Wilson and Robert E Mann, eds. -- See NCJ-138065)

• NCJ Number: 138073
• Author(s): K Stewart; M Klitzner
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 24 pages
• Sale Source: Guilford Publications, Inc.
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter examines the nature and effectiveness of countermeasures designed to reduce the incidence and injury who severity of youth who drink and drive.

Abstract

Current prevention strategies for driving while intoxicated and riding with intoxicated drivers (DWI/RWID) can be grouped into three major categories: those primarily concerned with the prevention of drinking, those mainly concerned with separating drinking and driving, and those concerned with preventing mortality and morbidity when and if DWI/RWID occur. There are three points at which DWI/RWID strategies and programming can be directed. Point 1 involves strategies that have as their primary objective the prevention of drinking and the development of nondrinking lifestyles among youth. Such programs include any of those that either attempt to alter the factors that predispose, reinforce, or enable drinking among individual youth or attempt to reduce access to alcohol. Strategies at point 1 would not address the problem of youth who ride with impaired drivers when parents or other adults are the drivers. Point 2 involves strategies that attempt to disassociate drinking and driving. The major objective here is to address risk factors that lead drinking youth to drive or that lead youth who associate with drinkers to be passengers. Point 3 involves strategies that attempt to limit morbidity and mortality among drinking drivers, their passengers, and those with whom they crash. Examples of these strategies include passive restraints, other vehicle-related technologies, and highway design elements. Prevention program development and research must break from the unsuccessful models of the past and develop new approaches firmly grounded in an understanding of the factors that predispose, reinforce, and enable alcohol use and DWI/RWID among adolescents. Given the current state of knowledge, such an understanding will require a program of additional research into the etiology of drinking and DWI/RWID among adolescents. 104 references