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Research under way to battle impaired driving

Brent Jennings, PE
Highway Safety Manager
Between 2007 and 2011 there were 8,347 impaired driving crashes, which resulted in 433 fatalities and 1,413 serious injuries. In fact, approximately 40 percent of all fatal crashes involved impaired drivers.

While these facts are very concerning, there is hope. The Office of Highway Safety (OHS) has been working on a research project to stop impaired driving in Idaho and we are now ready to implement an 18-month pilot project to address this problem in three communities in Idaho: Twin Falls, Lewiston, and Blackfoot.

The core strategy will be to foster broader community engagement in preventing impaired driving. This strategy is based on the Positive Community Norms (PCN) framework, and identified community leaders will come together on Feb. 20, 21 to learn the basics of the PCN approach, background on impaired driving beliefs and behaviors in Idaho, and about the pilot project which will be taking place in their community. The PCN framework focuses on three key components: leadership, communication and integration.

This is an exciting new strategy that will be employed to eliminate death and serious injury associated with impaired driving. Our office has every reason to believe this pilot will be successful, and we look forward to expanding this work into other regions of Idaho and into other highway safety areas of concern. Periodic progress reports regarding this pilot will be made.

New thoughts and ideas such as these will be needed to transform the culture of highway safety in order to achieve our goal of Zero Deaths in Idaho.