Every 15 Minutes
Every 15 Minutes is a two-day program focusing on high school juniors and seniors, which challenges them to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, and the responsibility of making mature decisions. Along with alcohol related crashes, it focuses on the impact that their decisions would have on family and friends.[1]
The Every 15 Minutes program originated in Canada and was soon adopted in the United States first in Spokane, Washington.[1] The site of the first Every 15 Minutes program was in Chico which was presented by the Chico Police Department in 1995.[2]
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[edit] Planning and Events
[edit] Planning
The Every 15 Minutes program starts months in advance of the actual presentation. This includes all of the involved agencies, students, and administrators from all schools getting together, and planning the event. This includes the selection of the students to be involved in the program.
[edit] Recent Advances
Due in large part to major grants and guidance by the Highway Patrol, the program has made its way to even more students' hometowns. In recent years, the California Highway Patrol has continued to improve the Every 15 Minutes program. Improvements have included expanding the program into a two day program, which includes an assembly on the second day, featuring speakers ranging from sentenced drunk drivers to motivational speakers to nurses, lawyers and law enforcement officials.
Since its inception, technology has improved, giving a rise to the impact of the program and the gravity of the issue of drunk driving. During the event, new technology has allowed for a quick turn around of videography, allowing a comprehensive video of the cause and effect relationship between drunken driving and police involvement, family burden, and community loss to be played at the second day's assembly. While student videographers sometimes take on this job, it is more common for professional crews to do the work. More recently, there has been a revival of student work, as schools either ask for one or two of their students to apprentice with the professionals, or students create a "making-of" film, shadowing the entire E15 process.
[edit] Questions Concerning Effectiveness
Studies that have tracked students before and after the Every 15 Minutes program have shown that the program may have a favorable short-term effect on students' stated attitudes but no effect on actual behavior.[3] This has led to charges that the Every 15 Minutes program is similar to the controversial DARE anti-drug program in that it produces the appearance of addressing the problem but does not produce the desired change in behavior.
Questions have also been raised about the basic premise of the program, that one person dies every 15 minutes in an alcohol related accident.[4] The NHTSA reports that in 1995, the first year the program was presented, the rate was actually one death every 30.4 minutes in the US. This was using the NHTSA's very broad definition of "alcohol related" wherein the accident was defined as "alcohol related" if any person involved had a blood alcohol level of 0.01% or higher.[5] The nationally recognized DUI level of presumption in the United States is 0.08%. The rate of alcohol-related fatalities has gradually declined and at the end of 2007 was one death every 40.4 minutes.[6] The rate of alcohol-related fatalities at the end of 2008 was one death every 45 minutes.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ Santa Rosa Police Department Every 15 Minutes
- ^ History of Every 15 Minutes from Mansfield Police Department
- ^ Measuring the effectiveness of a community-sponsored DWI intervention for teens
- ^ Every 15 Minutes Home Page
- ^ Traffic Safety Facts, Alcohol-Related Crashes and Fatalities, 1995
- ^ http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811016.PDF
- ^ http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811172.pdf
[edit] External links
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