Community receptivity to a countermeasure designed to reward sober drivers

This paper describes the components and results of a one-year pilot program in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, The program incorporated the enforcement and education strategies of traditional drinking-driving countermeasures, but focussed the intervention on sober driven stopped at police roadside spot-checks through a social marketing strategy. Drivers who were randomly stopped for this one year period and had not been drinking were rewarded with an incentive item (a plastic licence-folder) by a police officer at the spot-check, to reinforce their compliance with the law. A concurrent media campaign with the theme of ‘Thanks for Being a Sober Driver’ was also implemented in an attempt to further reinforce the non-risk behaviour of sober driving. A telephone survey was conducted of a random sample of people living in the municipality to determine community receptivity to this new countermeasure. Respondents overwhelmingly indicated support for the program, felt it was a good idea to thank and acknowledge sober drivers and endorsed the development of a similar program approach in other communities. Key informants from the police department involved with this program further supported this position.

Compliance (psychology) · Countermeasure · Incentive · Intervention (counseling) · Law enforcement · Officer · Political science · Psychiatry · Public relations · Applied Psychology · Engineering · Forensic Toxicology and Drug Analysis · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes · Traffic and Road Safety