Creating Impaired Driver General Deterrence
Eight Case Studies of Sustained,
High-Visibility, Impaired-Driving Enforcement

INTRODUCTION

This document presents eight case studies of programmatic efforts that are intended to reduce the incidence of impaired driving. The purpose of the document is to provide examples of promising efforts that might encourage law enforcement managers and others to consider developing similar programs for their jurisdictions.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) asked Anacapa Sciences, Inc., to prepare descriptive summaries of programs that provide direction and strategies concerning the planning, financing, and conduct of sustained impaired driving enforcement activities. NHTSA specified that the candidate programs must, at a minimum, demonstrate the following characteristics.

• Weekly (preferred) or monthly (minimum) regularly scheduled special impaired driving enforcement activities conducted over a sustained period of time.
  
  
• Highly visible law enforcement presence through such practices as checkpoints and saturation patrols.
  
  
• Media component that supports the enforcement activities. The media component should consist of both earned and unearned publicity in a variety of formats.
  
  
• Strong command and political support.

NHTSA also expressed particular interest in impaired-driving enforcement programs that are multi-jurisdictional efforts and in programs that are self-sustaining. NHTSA issued a request for recommendations of programs that meet the specified criteria. Recommendations received by NHTSA were forwarded to the project director who then identified and contacted program personnel, conducted interviews, and obtained additional information through independent research and an iterative process of follow-up requests for information and data, and responses by program personnel. The resulting collection of summaries included 10 programs conducted by municipal police departments, 5 by state police or highway patrols, 4 by county sheriff’s offices, 3 by non-law enforcement government agencies, 3 by non-government agencies, 3 multi-agency task forces administered by municipal police departments, and one by a university police department. The 29 programs are listed in Appendix A.

NHTSA selected eight programs to be described in greater detail. Additional independent research, interviews, and site visits were conducted to obtain the information necessary to expand the summaries into the eight case studies presented here. A common format is used to describe the programs. Each case study begins with a statement of the program’s distinguishing features, followed by a description of the setting, or location, of the program; then, background information and a discussion of the planning process are provided. Next, the program is described in sections devoted to the special enforcement methods, frequency of operations and duration of the program, participation, public awareness/program visibility, and funding. Perhaps most useful, the case studies also include sections listing the lessons learned during the program, which are presented in terms of obstacles encountered (and solutions to the problems), program strengths, and specific suggestions from the program organizers. Each case study concludes with a brief discussion of evidence of program effects and the program liaison’s contact information. The locations of the eight programs described in this document are illustrated on the accompanying map and include one statewide, two municipal, and five county programs.

The programs are similar in important ways. In particular, they share the objective of reducing the incidence of traffic crashes in which alcohol is a factor and the strategy of conducting highly visible, sustained enforcement activities. In addition, all of the programs began with the organizers performing systematic analyses of the factors that contributed to crashes in their areas and by identifying appropriate countermeasures. The organizers of the programs all were eager to learn from the experiences of others, and equally eager to innovate and/or adapt promising strategies to local conditions. Examples of programmatic innovation range from the development of low staffing level sobriety checkpoints designed by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for mountainous areas, to the media events conducted by the Cuyahoga County DUI Task Force to generate the free publicity necessary to elevate public awareness of their enforcement program¹. Perhaps the most important similarity is that all of the programs are guided by highly motivated and capable organizers who sincerely believe that their actions can contribute to saving lives and preventing pain and suffering.

Despite their similarities, each of the programs is unique in its combination of agency type, agency size, enforcement and publicity methods, and frequency of operations. The programs represent a broad spectrum of special enforcement activities conducted by a variety of agencies, including county sheriffs, municipal police departments, a state patrol, and multi-agency task forces. The enforcement, publicity, and administrative methods include all of the traditional approaches and several innovative strategies, such as the cross-cultural efforts of the Washington State Patrol, the comprehensive approach of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, the procedures designed by the East Valley DUI Task Force to increase efficiency, the organizational structure created by the Austin Police Department, and the solutions to financial limitations developed in Fresno and Los Angeles County. In short, this collection of case studies provides a sample of promising, sustained, high-visibility, impaired driving enforcement programs that are currently conducted throughout the Nation.

¹Various terms are used throughout the United States for offenses involving drinking and driving. Driving Under the Influence (DUI) and Driving While Impaired (DWI) are used in this report to refer to occurrences of driving at or above the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limit of a jurisdiction, depending upon that jurisdiction's prevailing legal term.