An evaluation of thirteen local selective enforcement projects designed to reduce drunken driving in Virginia.
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Summary
This 1985 report by Cheryl Lynn evaluates the effectiveness of thirteen locally funded selective enforcement projects in Virginia, designed to reduce drunken driving (DUI) and alcohol-related crashes. The study was motivated by the increasing emphasis on DUI as a public health issue and federal requirements to assess the impact of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) grants awarded during the FY 1982 period. The research aimed to determine whether increased police patrols during target hours successfully reduced alcohol-related accidents and increased DUI arrests, while controlling for other variables. The methodology involved analyzing data from thirteen diverse localities, ranging from small towns like Blackstone to large cities like Richmond, and counties such as Russell. The study utilized a four-year period (1979–1983) to compare pre-grant and grant-period statistics. Data were sourced from centralized state records, including State Police Crash Tapes and Department of Motor Vehicles reports, to ensure consistency and avoid discrepancies found in local records. The evaluation criteria required that successful projects demonstrate an increase in DUI arrests and a decrease in alcohol-related accidents during target hours (typically Friday and Saturday nights), without corresponding changes in non-alcohol-related accidents or trends during non-target hours. The projects generally involved training officers and conducting special patrols during peak drinking hours. The findings revealed mixed results across the thirteen localities. Twelve localities set specific DUI arrest goals, and six of them met these goals. However, only three localities failed to meet their accident reduction goals, suggesting that most projects achieved their safety objectives. Notably, seven of the localities had preexisting alcohol-related accident problems, while ten had received previous selective enforcement grants. The report highlights a critical finding: there was no consistent correlation between an increase in DUI arrests and a reduction in alcohol-related accidents. For instance, in Bristol, arrests increased by 151% and alcohol-related accidents during target hours decreased by 22%, whereas in Falls Church, arrests rose by 66% but accident reductions were partially attributed to broader trends rather than the enforcement alone. In Newport News, a 12% increase in arrests corresponded with a 6.1% decrease in alcohol-related accidents during target hours. The significance of this study lies in its challenge to the assumption that increased enforcement directly translates to reduced accidents. The report concludes that factors such as locality size, population density, prior enforcement history, and the presence of transient drivers or educational institutions significantly influence project outcomes. The lack of a consistent relationship between arrest numbers and accident reductions suggests that selective enforcement may not be a universally effective countermeasure for reducing alcohol-related crashes. The findings imply that local conditions and existing safety environments play a more substantial role in determining the success of DUI enforcement programs than the mere volume of arrests.
Key finding
Only three of the thirteen evaluated local selective enforcement projects demonstrated a measurable improvement in the alcohol-related safety environment attributable to the program, and increasing DUI arrests did not produce a consistent reduction in alcohol-related accidents.
Methodology
field_study
Sample size: 13
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
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| verify | success | — | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.
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- Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation
- Empirical Findings: crash risk outcomes