Research shows that the Road Crew project has achieved measurable success in making Wisconsin’s roadways safer. This project demonstrates success in creating public/private partnerships that work, and state/local partnerships that maximize resources to make a difference. The Road Crew exceeded its original goal of a 5% reduction in crashes in a cost-efficient manner, while gaining wide-spread support in its targeted communities. Project leaders are confident that the work shown here can be replicated in virtually any small community in the United States; their model is not relevant just to Wisconsin.

Motivation

In 2000, focus group research developed an in-depth description of 21-34-year-old men, to understand why they drank to excess and then drove themselves home. Participants were asked to brainstorm ideas for a ride program they might consider using. Key insights from this research phase included:

• People can’t drive home impaired if they don’t drive themselves to the bar in the first place. By separating the target from his car early in the evening, he would not end up making the decision to drive home at bar closing time.
• While many people drove after excessive drinking, they tended to worry a lot as the end of the evening approached, and this worry took the edge off of an otherwise delightful evening of camaraderie.

These findings led to the development of the Road Crew as a fun and easy alternative to driving one’s own vehicle from home, around during the evening, and back home at the end of the night.

Behavior

Additional research was conducted to identify the levels of drinking and driving in potential Road Crew communities and control communities prior to launching the ride service, and then after one year of operations to measure behavioral change. The method consisted of surveying bar patrons throughout the state to gather their self-reported history of drinking and driving. Results showed:

• There was no measurable increase in alcohol consumption in Road Crew communities.
• There was an increase in the number of bars visited, indicating that Road Crew can be good business for the serving industry.
• There was a significant decrease in the frequency of drinking and driving incidents in the Road Crew communities compared with control group behavior.

Awareness and Attitudes

Members of the target market, general population, community leaders, bar owners, and wait staff were surveyed to measure awareness of and attitudes toward the Road Crew.

• Awareness in the general community was 68%; it ranged from 70% to 100% in the other groups.
• Among those who were aware, over 80% surveyed had positive feelings about the program, and nearly half of those aware perceived a decrease in the community in driving after excessive drinking.
• Community leaders felt that the program should continue into the future.

Crash Prevention

The three original Road Crew demonstration communities gave almost 20,000 rides in their first year of operations. Each ride may be considered an opportunity for an alcohol-related crash prevented.

• These rides are estimated to have prevented 15 alcohol-related crashes on area roads during the one-year study, a 17% reduction.
• The average cost of an alcohol related crash in Wisconsin is about $56,000; the cost to avoid a crash in this program was about $15,300.

Achieving Success

The Road Crew project succeeded for a number of reasons, including:

• Most people are aware that they should not be driving after excessive drinking, but often there is no opportunity for them to behave otherwise; the Road Crew provided such an opportunity.
• The program was predicated on sound research, which is not always available.
• The ride service was seen by the target as being cool, so it was easy for them to begin to use it. By meeting their needs, the Road Crew was able to meet the community needs of reducing crashes.
• There were champions in the communities committed to the project who dedicated enormous energy to developing programs that worked.

The complete Road Crew Research Report is available as a PDF (136 KB)

You may also download any or all of the Appendices to the report:
Appendix A (1.3 MB)
Appendix B (120 KB)
Appendix C (1.2 MB)