Impaired Driving

Motor vehicle crashes are the number one cause of death among young adults age 15 to 20, and more than a quarter of those killed in motor vehicle crashes had been drinking.¹ In 2006, 13,470 people were killed in alcohol-impaired driving crashes.²

The dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol are well-documented, yet many people continue to drink and drive. Recent studies indicate that more than 15 percent of drivers age 18 and older had driven under the influence of alcohol at least once in the previous year.³

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has combined forces with local and state law enforcement agencies, safe driving advocacy groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and others to combat drunk driving by conducting well-advertised and well-coordinated “crackdowns” twice a year during traditionally dangerous travel periods.

Do media campaigns work? Do people actually respond to them? Can public service campaigns – also called “social marketing” – convince people to stop drinking and driving?

The main focus of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is to reduce injuries and fatalities on the nation’s roadways. Behavioral research on risky driving behaviors, such as driving under the influence of alcohol, is a key part of NHTSA’s mission. NHTSA also funds or supports intervention activities within behavioral research areas, including funding for semi-annual Alcohol-impaired Driving Crackdowns across the country. The Media Network, Inc. (TMN) recently won a contract from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to evaluate the effectiveness of the NHTSA-sponsored twice-yearly “crackdown” on drunk driving by conducting telephone surveys both before and after each campaign, beginning with the summer 2011 campaign. We will look at attitudes toward drunk driving before the media campaigns begin, awareness of the campaigns, and attitudes toward drunk driving once the campaigns have been completed.

For more information on the dangers of driving while impaired check out the resources listed below:

NHTSA Information

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810801.PDF
http://www.stopimpaireddriving.org/

CDC Information
http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/index.html

Mothers Against Drunk Driving
http://www.madd.org/

¹ http://www.nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/departments/nrd-30/ncsa/AvailInf.html

² DOT HS 810 801, updated March 2008.

³ The National Survey on Drug Use and Health Report. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k8/stateDUI/stateDUI.pdf

 

For research-based information and reports on specific impaired driving topics, the following resources are recommended:
Mass Media Campaigns are Effective in Preventing Alcohol-Impaired Driving
http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/massmedia.html

Motor Vehicle-Related Injury Prevention: Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving
http://www.thecommunityguide.org/mvoi/AID/index.html
 

Research Update: School-based Programs Reduce Riding with Alcohol-impaired Drivers
http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/ReducingMVCrashesYoungDrv.html
 

Research Update: Sobriety Checkpoints Are Effective in Reducing Alcohol-Related Crashes
http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/checkpoint.html
 

2011 Plan for Enforcement
http://www.stopimpaireddriving.org/Labor-Day-2011-Timeline.pdf

A Lesson from Teens on Designing Teen-oriented Sex Ed Publications

Several weeks ago, our staff conducted one-on-one interviews with teens (ages 13 to 17) to hear their thoughts about two designs for a leaflet targeted to teens to raise awareness of sexually transmitted diseases. A fairly diverse group of eight teens participated. By age, one was a 13-year-old, two were 14-year-olds, two were 15-year-olds, two were 16-year-olds, and one was a 17-year-old. By race and ethnicity, two were African Americans, three were Caucasian Americans, and three were Hispanic Americans. By gender, representation was an even split—four females and four males.

Our goal was to find out which (if any) of the two leaflets these teens would pick up and read if they saw it someplace—which one was, in our minds, “cool enough.” So we asked them specific questions about the title, the cover designs, and the layouts including photos, colors, and font (type) styles. What we learned from them is not what we expected.

To prepare us to create the designs, we first read market studies on teens and media use. It was no surprise to us when we found in recent CDC and Nielsen studies that teens are drawn to new media (computers, cell phones, iphones, and the like). But we also found that teens are still drawn to traditional media (radio, TV, newspapers, and magazines). Our next step was to spend time in popular bookstores perusing magazines to find out what teens (ages 13 to 17) are picking up to read.

We noticed that the popular magazines targeted to teens had common characteristics in their “look and feel.” For example, photos were used generously—often as full-page spreads arranged in scrapbook patterns. Fonts were trendy and often bold, especially when used in headlines and subheadings. The most distinctive characteristic was the high saturation of bold background colors especially in text boxes. Bright and bold colors also were applied to segments of body text (especially in magazines for teen girls). The mood of the magazines can be described as fun, playful, and upbeat.

Based on what we found, we created two full-color magazine-style leaflets to be printed on glossy paper and folded to an 8 ½- by 11-inch finished size. One design was a slightly modified version of the other—having a brighter and more saturated background color. Each design included overlays of text boxes in various sizes, generous use of colors and trendy fonts, and stock photos of groups of playful teens, playful teen couples, and a teen with an adult.

The teens that we interviewed liked the title and the designs overall, but they expressed a strong dislike of certain aspects of the designs. To our surprise, what they disliked were what we thought were some of the “cool” aspects of the designs, such as the title in all lower case letters (they preferred a mix of upper and lower case), bright and saturated colors (they preferred light background colors for body text for easy reading), trendy fonts (they preferred some use of traditional fonts), and tabloid size or the option to fold the leaflet to a pocket size (they preferred a tri-fold because it’s what they’re used to).

Our biggest surprise was their strong disapproval of the stock photos of a boy and girl dancing together, and a boy touching the shoulder of a girl standing in front of a school locker. Their response was the boy and girl were “physically too close,” and the photos implied that something inappropriate might follow. They all said they were not comfortable having the boy and girl photos “of this type” presented to them in a leaflet produced by adults for teens. Who knew? Maybe the lesson is, we don’t need to be cool; we just need to be adults!