West Virginia’s Impaired Driving High-Visibility Enforcement Campaign, 2003–2005
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Summary
This report evaluates the effectiveness of West Virginia’s Impaired Driving High-Visibility Enforcement Campaign, conducted from 2003 to 2005. Motivated by a stable trend in alcohol-related fatalities since 1995, West Virginia became a Strategic Evaluation State for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2002. The study aimed to determine whether implementing NHTSA’s model—combining paid media publicity with intensified enforcement—could reduce impaired driving and associated fatalities in targeted regions. The campaign focused on six targeted counties (Berkeley, Ohio, Kanawha, Marion, Raleigh, and Wood) and consisted of three components: paid media advertising, holiday crackdowns involving sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols, and sustained enforcement between holidays. From 2003 to 2005, the state spent approximately $3.4 million on the campaign, averaging 62 cents per resident annually. Media efforts targeted young men aged 21 to 34, utilizing slogans such as “You Drink & Drive. You Lose.” Enforcement activities included 810 checkpoints and patrols in targeted counties, significantly exceeding the average in non-targeted counties. The evaluation employed multiple methods to assess impact. Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) office surveys measured public awareness and perceptions of enforcement strictness. Roadside surveys collected anonymous blood alcohol concentration (BAC) data from drivers at sobriety checkpoints in targeted counties during 2004 and 2005. Additionally, autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) analysis was used to examine trends in alcohol-related fatalities using data from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Results indicated significant improvements in public awareness and enforcement perception in targeted counties. DMV surveys showed a 29.7-percentage-point increase in respondents reporting exposure to impaired driving messages and a 41-percentage-point increase in recognition of the campaign slogan. Drivers in targeted counties were also significantly more likely to report having passed through a sobriety checkpoint. Roadside surveys revealed a statistically significant 2.8-percentage-point decrease in the proportion of drivers with positive BACs between 2004 and 2005, with a notable 3.2-percentage-point decrease among male drivers. Most critically, the ARIMA analysis demonstrated a significant, sustained decrease in alcohol-related fatalities in the targeted counties following the campaign’s launch. The model estimated a reduction of approximately 0.99 fatalities per month, totaling about 18 lives saved over the 18-month evaluation period, representing a 24% reduction. While statewide fatality trends decreased, the change was not statistically significant. The study concludes that the high-visibility enforcement campaign successfully achieved its goals of increasing public awareness, reducing impaired driving prevalence, and saving lives in the targeted areas.
Key finding
The high-visibility enforcement campaign resulted in a significant decrease in the alcohol-related fatality trend in targeted counties, saving an estimated 18 lives over 18 months.
Methodology
field_study
Sample size: 4195
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | rosap | — | — | 2 | 2026-05-23 |
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| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-10 |
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| embed | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-02 |
| enrich | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-05-23 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 3 | 2026-06-10 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 19 | 2026-06-11 |
| 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, policy recommendations
- Empirical Findings: observational prevalence