DWI
dRIVING WHILE INTOXICATED
PSYCHOLOGY OF DWI ACTIVISM IN CYBERSPACE
NCADD WEB PAGE ON DWI ACTIVISM
Following the link from the directions page, it brought me to the NCADD site. The site has many sub pages, and I will focus on the Page dealing with research abstracts. NCADD stands for National Commission Against Drunk Driving. The first thing on the page is a link to Traffic Safety Research Abstracts which I will acknowledge in a further on in this report.
The idea of this site is to explain the purpose of NCADD. The NCADD argues to for an approach that involves creating targeted groups to fight drunk
driving. They argue that resources should be focused to behavior in three different
groups. Twenty one to thirty four year old young adults comprise the first group, chronic drunk drivers being the second group, and underage drinkers being the third group.
http://www.ncadd.com/tsra.html
The first group which is twenty one to thirty four year olds comprise about fifty percent of all drunk driving accidents. It has also been found that this group tends to drink to much higher BAC (blood alcohol concentration) levels.
The second group Chronic Drunk Drivers is big problem. Estimates say that one in every seven adults is a problem drinker. Thus they are also a potential drunk driver. The site feels that everyone who is arrested for DWI should also be screened for possible alcohol addiction, because if they have a problem with alcohol then they will be likely to drink and drive again. Treatment for alcoholism is something that this org. pushes as part of possible sentences for DWI offenders.
The third group is Underage Drivers. This group is legally not able to drink or buy alcohol, yet there is a large representation from this group. There is two compounding factors for this group. One is that they are inexperienced drivers and second they are inexperienced drinkers. It has been found that low BAC levels are more likely for this group than any other.
This site is attempting to assist professionals and concerned citizens in finding research
relevant to their needs. A TSRA (Traffic Safety Research Abstracts) search database has been set up to assist people in their searches.
It is interesting that this sites traffic safety research abstract section is funded by Anheuser-Busch,inc.
The Traffic Safety Research Abstracts or TSRA themselves are brief synopses of research papers, and studies. The TSRA is set up to help people or groups find relevant information.
There are two ways to search either by clicking on the direct search in which you enter the words or themes like "drunk driving" that you want to search on and the second is by clicking on a pre set category such as Chronic Drunk drivers.
I think this site is great If you are doing a college research paper on DWI or DUI this site would be great for finding references to quote from. The abstracts are just a summary of the article itself but once you find an abstract that is helpful you can always search for the actual work elsewhere.
Here are all of the links I found and a brief summary. The first is a direct search where you enter your words or theme, and the rest are all preset categories of research information.
This link brings you to a search page. You can enter a variety of words to start your search on a subject. Also on the page is a list of hints to help you find exactly what you are looking for. For example if you want to look up a specific theme and not just one word you need to put the theme in quotations like this "Specific theme". This sites main purpose is just to search through the Traffic Safety research abstracts.
If you were doing a study on the prevalence of drinking and driving among sixteen to twenty year olds you could find much of your information already organized for you right here. This link is set up to give you specific information just on underage drunk drivers. The site even addresses a difference between the sexes. I thought this site was interesting because it outlined how big of a problem there is using many statistics.
I found out from this page that young drivers from the age of 21 to 34 are the highest group to be found to get into alcohol related crashes. This site is also a synopses of many research articles with many statistics. The site also helps you with ways to apply this research. I think that this data can be used and analyzed by state officials, lobbying groups and others who want to create new laws or change old ones concerning drinking and driving.
This site gives not only data on statistics of drunk driving, but also suggestions concerning chronic drunk drivers and how to detect DWI of motorcyclists. The site suggests that road stops are not much deterrence for chronic drunk drivers, because most already know where the road blocks are going to be and they simply change their driving routes to avoid them. They feel that random check points and rotating road blocks would greatly help catch and deter drunk driving. This site is helpful for researchers, but I also think that any driver should access this site just to see and get a comprehension of all the statistics there are for drunk driving. This should be a part of every drivers education. Maybe we could even put a statistic or two on the written evaluation just to make new drivers memorize it.
USING TECHNOLOGY TO PREVENT DWI
The technology mentioned in this article included. Passive alcohol sensors, preliminary breathing devices and the use of road blocks set up to catch drunk drivers. It was found that road blocks themselves were not very effective in detecting young drunk impaired drivers, because they did not exhibit impairment that could be visibly seen. It was found that preliminary breathing devices when used were very successful. I feel that this type of information can be used more by various groups like MADD (mothers against drunk driving) to try to prove their points and lobby for new legislation.
This site deals with the prevalence of repeat offenders and how treatment or legal sanctions effect the reoccurrence of offenders. It was found that compared to legal sanctions alone a combination of education, licensing sanctions, psychotherapy/counseling, and follow-up supervision, such as regular contact with a probation officer or aftercare has been more effective at stopping a recurrence of offenders. This is great that they address this issue. I always feel that education and counseling are the answer compared with only direct legal sanctioning.
This site talks about the current legal sanctions that are used in most states. Primarily license revocation and or jail time. It is stated that surveys found that most individuals feel that it is very unlikely that they will be caught for driving intoxicated. The statistics are also support this. It has been estimated that most people may drive drunk between 200 and 2000 times before getting caught. The fact of what sanctions deter drunk driving more is also brought up. For a law to be effectively deterrent, the penalties need to be perceived by the public as being swift, certain and properly severe for the offense at hand.
This is a link to a search engine in the site. It is also a link to a register page in which you can enter the subject that you could not find and they will try to work on getting more information if they think that the subject is of use and relevant. This is great because the site is a continually growing database of information concerning drunk driving and related topics. This site should be used by everyone just as a reminder for most not to drink and drive.
LAST CALL (ALCOHOL LEVEL INDICATORS)
The purpose of this site is to advertise to consumers and possible corporate sponsors to buy the new Last call alcohol level indicator. The alcohol level indicator when used can tell a would be driver whether their BAC or blood alcohol content is under .08. The site also has a link to its own BAC calculator. You can enter the number of drinks, hours since drunken, sex of the individual, weight of the individual, and it will figure out a hypothetical BAC level for you. I think that for responsible drinkers and safe drivers this could be a good idea. The idea is plausible and could be of some help to people who are responsible in the first place. The site has a good idea and product which they are advertising at a reduced rate for the millenium party to help keep everyone safe and off the roads if they are drunk.
I found this site looking for DWI. It doesn't talk specifically about driving while drunk. This web page however is relevant because alcoholics do drive and they usually drive drunk. This site is aimed at alcoholics or people trying to recover from alcoholism. The title alcoholism kills is relevant to our topic because driving is how many Americans a year die in car crashes which are sometimes because of alcohol and often due to people who are addicted to alcohol. This site can be effective to help people to stop using alcohol, because it has links to stories and help groups concerning the abuse of alcoholism. Supporters of this site are people who want to share their stories to help others stay alive by not abusing alcohol.
MADD (MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING)
This is a site focused on the organization mothers against drunk driving. It is an organization open to all that want to fight drunk driving. The organization is nation wide. From their web site you can access information of chapters all around the country. I found a chapter on Maui near my house. Available was the address and phone number. The site includes a membership signup and a list of recent news topics concerning drunk driving and most recent topics. The sight is great to unite people across the United states who want to stop drunk driving. The methods and approach of this organization is to stay active in the fight against drunk driving by education and getting their message out to the public. The sight is very convincing because it seems to be such a large organization.
Well unfortunately I searched through my class 459, 400a, and 409b, and I didn't find one other person who did this report along with myself. I found a lot of interesting reports along the way though. So I decided to find someone who did the report in one of the last semesters. I went back to G11 which I was a part of also and looked around until I found that Chris Flores had done this report also last spring. I feel he did a very good job explaining the NCADD site. His content was good. The approach he used was the same as I used. But I felt his presentation was great. I liked the use of frames. It was helpful to really separate the sections. Take a look for yourself at Christopher Flores report on DWI Activism in Cyberspace.
How can we further this report. Well the steps we have taken so far are to summarize and link to a NCADD which is a great site. We then are to find other web sites on DWI. This is great because each semester there is a greater number of sites that are found. I think that it would be great if a student next semester went ahead and rounded up the links for all the DWI activism sites and created a home page for DWI activism. It would contain many links to other sites that would be helpful for researchers and the like. Just a thought. Good luck on all your reports and have fun.
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