The North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Initiative: initial results from "Booze It and Lose It"

1995

The North Carolina Governor's Highway Safety Initiative is a multiyear program intended to reduce motor vehicle crashes and injuries through publicity/enforcement programs aimed at increasing seat belt use, reducing alcohol-impaired driving, and reducing high speed driving. In 1993-94, a two-stage statewide program involving 6,364 seat belt checkpoints and 58,883 citations increased seat belt use to over 80 percent. The first round of a similarly intensive program addressing alcohol-impaired driving is being launched in November 1994. It features a three-week statewide program of heavy enforcement with checkpoints and roving saturation patrols and extensive publicity about the enforcement. Four emphasis areas - cities or counties within the state - are receiving additional treatment. Pre- and post-program on-the-road surveys of drinking and driving, and before and after telephone surveys are being used to measure the initial effects of the alcohol program. This paper describes the development and evolution of the Governor's Highway Safety Initiative, the alcohol program, and survey results documenting the effects of the first of several anticipated cycles of concentrated, highly publicized enforcement.