An Evaluation of a Single Drink-Driving Treatment Programme

The criminal records of individuals who were eligible to attend a drink-driver treatment programme were obtained for the period 1978–1983. The programme was aimed at changing attitudes toward drinking and driving, rather than directly altering the drinking behaviour of participants. Of those eligible to attend (N= 381), 62% completed the course while 38% did not attend any sessions or failed to complete the programme. Significant differences between these groups were not obtained for any pre-test measures, while differences were obtained between groups on the total number of crimes after treatment and the number of traffic-related violations at post-test, but not for any other outcome measure. Attendance at the course was not found to be related to subsequent decreases in drink-driving offences. A possible explanation of this result is that the focus of educational treatments are too broad to achieve specific behaviour change for multiple drink-driver offenders. Several factors made interpretation difficult; in particular, the absence of a control or comparison treatment group. Some suggestions for overcoming this and other related methodological problems in drink-driving research, are given.