Identification of Eligible Subjects

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Technical Report

Technical Summary

Milwaukee - The Milwaukee Municipal Court provided a set of records for all persons who were convicted of a first-time standard OWI offense from July to November 2000, were 21 years or older, and resided within a 50-mile radius of Milwaukee. A total of 130 offenders qualified. Each court record contained a variety of information about the driver and the offense, including the driver's license identification number, the dates of the violation and disposition by the court, the penalties imposed by the court, the plea, and whether there had been a warrant for failure to appear.

Using the driver identification number, driver abstracts for the 130 potential subjects were obtained from the Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles. The driver abstract provided a comprehensive and detailed driver history, including information about the current OWI offense; non-OWI traffic convictions, license actions, and reportable crashes during the past five years; and any previous OWI convictions.

Of the 130 offenders, 80 persons (62 percent) were eligible to obtain an occupational license (that is, they had no suspensions or revocations in effect during the year preceding their arrest for OWI). Thirty-three of the 130 offenders (25 percent) obtained an occupational license and, thus, were excluded from the observational study. Compared to the total pool of 130 offenders, the persons with occupational licenses were older; 21 percent of the persons with occupational licenses were 55 years or older, compared to 8 percent of the total subject pool. The persons with occupational licenses also were less likely to have had a warrant for failure to appear in court (6 percent versus 25 percent). The offenders who obtained an occupational license had less problematic driving records at the time of the OWI arrest. For example, these offenders were less likely to have had at least one license suspension prior to the current arrest (33 percent versus 52 percent) or to have accumulated more than five license penalty points during the prior five years (36 percent versus 49 percent).

Thirty-nine other potential subjects were excluded for the following reasons: suspension ending before or after the study period (21), incarceration (4), violation occurring several years ago (4), inability to locate (2), lived in an apartment complex (1), moved out of state (1), other (6). One additional subject was excluded after the during-suspension observations had been conducted when it was discovered that he obtained an occupational license one month before his suspension ended and before the observations were conducted. After these exclusions, there remained 57 offenders who were subjects in the observational study.

Bergen County - Copies of citations issued to persons convicted of a first-time DWI offense were obtained from the court administrators of four municipalities in Bergen County. These included the townships of Mahwah (23,000 population) and Saddle Brook (13,683 population) and the boroughs of Ramsey (14,480 population) and Franklin Lakes (10,575 population). Copies of conviction records were obtained from the borough of Waldwick (10,097 population). Despite the fact that Bergen County is heavily populated, it was challenging to find courts that had sufficient numbers of offenders who fit the subject profile. For example, after reviewing Mahwah court records, a significant proportion of cases were excluded because the offenders lived out-of-state (usually in New York State), were not convicted, had prior DWI convictions, or were younger than 21 years old.

Using the driver's license identification number from the citation, the driver abstract for potential subjects was obtained from New Jersey's Motor Vehicle Services. The abstracts for New Jersey offenders provided comprehensive and detailed information on the driving history and the current offense; non-DWI traffic convictions, license actions, and reportable crashes within the past five years; and prior DWI convictions occurring at any point in the past.

Of the 49 persons who met the screening criteria, 13 were excluded, as follows: lived in an apartment complex (5), inability to locate (3), suspension terminated after study period (3), appealed the conviction (1), the violation occurred several years earlier (1). The remaining 36 offenders were subjects in the observational study.