NCJ Number
74545
Date Published
1979
Length
62 pages
Annotation
The effectiveness of New Hampshire's Alcohol Safety Action Project, which attempted to modify the drinking and driving behavior of convicted drunk drivers through a driver retraining school, was measured through two studies of the post-treatment behavior of participants.
Abstract
The five-session driver retraining school combined classroom instruction on the legal, social, and personal issues of driving while intoxicated (DWI) with group discussion sessions. Each participant was evaluated at the end of training. Classes included social drinkers, problem drinkers, and young social drinkers, as identified by responses to the Mortimer-Filkins Form A, breath analyzer tests, and prior driving histories. In the first of the two studies, 500 DWI offenders were assigned to the driver retraining school and 500 received no retraining. The second study, part of a National Short Term Rehabilitation study, involved 101 problem drinkers in a group assigned to training and 101 problem drinkers who received no retraining. Subsequent driving behaviors were analyzed for the group in both studies and life changes were evaluated among the participants in the second study. No major differences were found between the treated groups and the untreated groups in the areas of recidivism or subsequent accidents. Problem drinkers with breath analyzer tests of 0.20 or more seemed to have fewer subsequent DWI arrests when assigned to training. The problem drinkers assigned to training reported greater amounts of subsequent social interaction and greater control over their drinking problems, although this latter effect diminished after 1 year. Breath analyzer scores were better predictors of recidivism than was the Mortimer-Filkins Form A. Training might be more effective if the participants were involved in a greater number of sessions. Figures and tables are included.