Operation safe crossing: using science within a community intervention. Deterring the drinking driver: the Stockton experience. The effect of drinking and driving interventions on alcohol-involved traffic crashes within a comprehensive community trial. Reducing alcohol-impaired driving in Massachusetts: the Saving Lives Program.
To evaluate a large drunk-driving enforcement program at the US/Mexican border to reduce the number of youths crossing the border to drink in Tijuana. This paper also describes the research data used to develop and manage the program. Data from a border breath-test survey were used to dramatize the problem and gain public support for action. The data were also used to help design the enforcement effort and measure progress in reducing the cross-border drinking problem.
                The number of news events generated around the occurrence of special enforcement efforts were used to measure project activity and to predict changes in the numbers of youths crossing into Mexico, their returning BACs and reductions in alcohol-related crashes during a 3-year period.
                An urban county on the Mexican border.
                Underage youths aged 18-20 years and young adults aged 21-30 years residing in San Diego County.
                Immigration and Naturalization Services provided population counts of the number of individuals crossing each weekend night from Tijuana into the United States through the San Ysidro border facility. Breath-test surveys of a random sample of these returning crossers provided data on the number of US residents visiting bars and nightclubs in Tijuana and on alcohol consumption at Tijuana bars and nightclubs. Night-time had-been-drinking crash data involving young drivers in several California counties served as an outcome measure of public health and safety.
                Analysis of data involving more than 2 million pedestrians returning from Tijuana indicated that the Operation Safe Crossing program reduced the number of late-night crossers by 31.6%.
                Effective use of data through media advocacy programs to support an enforcement effort can reduce alcohol-related crashes. The effectiveness of drunk driving enforcement patrols is generally assumed. However, few adequate evaluations are available in the traffic safety literature. The U.S. Department of Transportation funded a special program in Stockton, a city with a population of 120,000 in the central valley of California, to test the effectiveness of special drunk driving patrols on weekend evenings, applied within a setting in which no other major alcohol safety programs were present. The objective of this effort was to determine the effectiveness of a "traditional" approach to enforcing driving while impaired (DWI) laws; one in which innovative procedures such as sobriety checkpoints were not used. The results indicated that nighttime collisions in Stockton were reduced during the three and a half year period of the special enforcement program. The Drinking and Driving Component, one of five elements of the Community Trials Project, involved the implementation of a special drink driving countermeasure in the three experimental communities, one in Northern California, one in Southern California and another in South Carolina. This intensified enforcement of driving under the influence (DUI) was designed to deter potential drinking drivers by increasing their perception of the risk of being arrested leading to a reduction in the consumption of alcohol before driving. See component detailed description in Voas (1997, this issue). The evaluation found that media advocacy training and technical assistance resulted in increased DUI news coverage and that additional police officer hours for DUI enforcement, greater use of breathalyzer equipment, increased officer training and more checkpoints produced increased DUI enforcement. The combined effects of increased DUI news coverage and DUI enforcement yielded increased public perceived risk of arrest and subsequently less drinking and driving. Overall the evaluation found that alcohol-involved traffic crashes were reduced as a result of this component in the experimental communities as contrasted with the matched comparison communities. The purpose of this study ws to assess whether a community program begun in March 1988 that organized multiple city departments and private citizens could reduce alcohol-impaired driving, related driving risks, and traffic deaths and injuries.
                Trends in fatal crashes and injuries per 100 crashes were compared in Saving Lives Program cities and the rest of Massachusetts from March 1984 through February 1993. In annual roadside surveys conducted at randomly selected locations, safety belt use among occupants of 54577 vehicles and travel speeds of 118442 vehicles were observed. Four statewide telephone surveys (n = 15188) monitored self-reported driving after drinking.
                In program cities relative to the rest of Massachusetts during the 5 program years in comparison with the previous 5 years, fatal crashes declined 25%, from 178 to 120, and fatal crashes involving alcohol decreased 42%, from 69 to 36. Visible injuries per 100 crashes declined 5%, from 21.1 to 16.6. The proportions of vehicles observed speeding and teenagers who drove after drinking were cut in half.
                Interventions organized by multiple city departments and private citizens can reduce driving after drinking, related driving risks, and traffic deaths and injuries.
Studies examining increased police patrol programs were generally consistent in reporting beneficial effects on traffic crashes and fatalities, but study quality and reporting were often poor. Methodological limitations included inadequate sample size, dissimilar baseline measures, contamination, and inadequate data analysis. Thus existing evidence, although supportive, does not firmly establish whether increased police patrols, implemented with or without other intervention elements, reduce the adverse consequences of alcohol-impaired driving.