What Doesn't Work to Prevent Unintentional Auto-Related Injuries:
Students Against Drunk Driving, At Least When Not Fully Implemented

Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) is a well-known program that bridges the school and the community in drinking and driving prevention efforts. We are aware of only one study to date that evaluated a SADD program (Klitzner, Gruenewald, Bamberger, & Rossiter, 1994). One program and one comparison school each in California and in New Mexico were matched on school size, percent white, socioeconomic status, academic ranking, grade levels, and urbanicity. The California schools were suburban and predominately white; whereas, the New Mexico schools were in a low socioeconomic status, rural area and were one-third Hispanic and two-thirds white. As originally envisioned, the SADD program was to include four components: 1) a kick-off assembly designed to motivate interest and attention to the issue; 2) the formation of student chapters to coordinate school and community events; 3) a 15 session, 10th grade curriculum designed to communicate the negative consequences of drunk driving and to incorporate role play activities; and 4) the signing of a contract in which the student and his/her parents pledge to have a parent provide transportation in cases where the student has been drinking. In reality, the California program school implemented some, but not all, of the SADD program and the New Mexico program school implemented very little of the program. Moreover, the California comparison school initiated some of its own drinking and driving prevention activities during the evaluation period. Acknowledging these limitations, the evaluation suggested that SADD had no measurable effect on drinking and driving behavior or on other related measures. Further study should assess whether SADD is at all effective when implemented more fully and should evaluate the feasibility of more thorough implementations.


See Page 59 in Full Report

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