DOT HS 809 884

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH

This project selected and evaluated an operational program aimed at reducing alcohol-related crashes involving drivers 21 to 34 years old. After examining several candidate programs, we selected the Smart Roads program in Pueblo County, Colorado, for further study, including a descriptive analysis of the program and an impact evaluation of the program’s effect on alcohol-related crashes (a surrogate of alcohol-related crashes) involving the target group of drivers.

THE SMART ROADS PROGRAM

The program was initiated in 2000 and has continued through the writing of this report. Initially, it concentrated on male drivers in the 21 to 34 age group, but was later expanded to include drivers of both sexes. The program was designed as a community effort involving two major components, an extensive media campaign and a workplace initiative. The media campaign included highly focused television, radio, and newspaper ads; and billboards. In addition, a variety of other material, including paycheck inserts, table tents, posters, and banners were used. Much of this material was placed with businesses around Pueblo, such as local construction companies and bars.

During the operation period of concern in this report (the years 2000 and 2001), the workplace initiative was mostly developmental, having undergone testing in just one business. It included an educational program designed specifically to stimulate and challenge the thinking of blue-collar workers¹ in the 21 to 34 age group regarding their drinking and driving beliefs and practices. The program consists of three 50-minute sessions at work sites that revolve around interactive activities, emphasizing issues of control, con-sequences, perceptions of norms, and behavioral beliefs.

PROGRAM IMPACT AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Our evaluation of Pueblo County’s Smart Roads program used nighttime injury (NI) crashes and nighttime single-vehicle injury (NSVI) crashes (surrogates of alcohol-related crashes) involving a driver of the target age group (21 to 34) as measures of effectiveness. The relatively small size of Pueblo County (approximately 141,000 people) dictated the use of a before-and-after, test-and-comparison group evaluation design with these surrogate measures of alcohol-related crashes. The test group of primary interest was Pueblo County, but because of the nature of the Pueblo County intervention (which had a strong public information component that could have spread to adjoining counties), we also considered a test group composed of Pueblo County plus eight other low-population surrounding counties. These other counties were Teller, Fremont, Custer, Huerfano, Las Animas, Otero, Crowley, and Lincoln counties. The comparison groups were composed of crash-involved drivers 21 to 34 years old in the non-test counties. For the test group containing only Pueblo, the comparison group was all Colorado counties except Pueblo. And for the test group containing Pueblo plus the above eight surrounding counties, the comparison group was all Colorado counties except Pueblo plus the above eight surrounding counties. The “before” period was 1998 and 1999, and the “after” period was 2000 and 2001.

Our evaluation strongly suggests that the program reduced nighttime injury (NI) crashes in Pueblo County involving 21- to 34-year-old drivers, from 38 crashes in the before period to 23 in the after period. The reduction in NI crashes involving this age group of drivers as a percentage of all crashes involving this age group of drivers in Pueblo County amounted to about 43 percent. At the same time, this percentage increased slightly in the rest of the State. These changes were statistically significant (p=0.045 for number of crashes and p=0.041 for the percent of crashes). The program’s effect on nighttime single-vehicle (NSVI) crashes involving age 21 to 34 drivers could not be deter-mined due to the small number of such crashes in Pueblo County.

There is also evidence that the program had a positive carry-over effect on NI crashes, and also on NSVI crashes in eight small counties adjacent to Pueblo County. In Pueblo County plus the eight small counties, NI crashes decreased from 251 in the before period to 161 in the after period, a decrease of 39 percent. In the rest of the State, NI crashes increased 3.3 percent. These changes were significant at the p<0.0001 level. For NI crashes as a percentage of all 21 to 34 crashes, Pueblo plus the eight small counties showed a decrease from 13.2 percent in the before period to 9.7 percent in the after period (p<0.0.0001), while the rest of the State had a small increase. And while the number of NSVI crashes decreased significantly from 153 to 115 (24.8%) in Pueblo plus the eight small counties, and increased slightly in the rest of the State (p=0.01), there was no significant decrease in the percentage of such crashes.

We note that these conclusions regarding program effect are only valid within the limitations imposed by the evaluation design. Comparison jurisdictions were used to help account for confounding factors that may have influenced outcomes, but available data did not permit such factors to be treated explicitly. However, these conclusions are supported by evidence of a considerable amount of carefully planned activity devoted mainly to an extensive media campaign that did not occur in the comparison jurisdictions. In addition, the Smart Roads program benefited by the involvement by other members of the Pueblo community, including the Pueblo Police Department and the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office; education, medical, and insurance professionals; and staff from two major beer companies and local bars and taverns. Outside direct funding support was mod-est, consisting only of an annual $75,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Transportation for achieving full-scale operations.

Interestingly, despite a low rate of participation in the Workplace Initiative component of the program, Smart Roads as a whole still had a positive effect on crashes. This implies that the Workplace Initiative was not necessary to achieve the observed effect in Pueblo, and suggests that the program might have had a greater impact if participation in the Workplace Initiative component could have been increased.

Jurisdictions of similar size, composition, and resources may want to consider the Smart Roads approach for reducing alcohol-related crashes among 21- to 34-year-old drivers. Careful planning and community involvement appear to be the essential ingredients for the success of such a program. In particular, although the program was supported by State Department of Transportation funding, significant decision-making and administration happened at the local level. This is important because locals often feel that they have a better sense of what works and what does not work within their own communities, and community leaders are more likely to feel motivated and empowered when they retain a significant measure of control over program development. Also, the amount and quality of the research performed prior to and during the Pueblo campaign was outstanding and helped identify the most effective messages and media delivery methods, as well as to evaluate program effectiveness.

1 Blue-collar workers are defined by the U.S. Department of Labor as “workers who perform work involving repetitive operations with their hands, physical skill and energy,” and includes “non-management employees in production, maintenance, construction and similar occupations such as carpenters, electricians, mechanics, plumbers, iron workers, craftsmen, operating engineers, longshoremen, construction workers and laborers” as examples of such employees. (See www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay /fs17i_blue_collar.htm)