SUMMARY REPORT: FIELD TEST OF COMBINED SPEED, ALCOHOL, AND SAFETY BELT ENFORCEMENT STRATEGIES.

This report summarizes the implementation of traffic safety programs in three communities: Knoxville, Tennessee; Wichita, Kansas; and Lexington, Kentucky. The goal of each program was to reduce the incidence of speeding, alcohol-impaired driving (DWI) and non-use of safety belts through well-publicized enforcement strategies focusing attention on all three areas. The programs sequentially emphasized five different combined enforcement strategies over a period of approximately one year. A public information and education program that focused on each strategy ran for about two months. The overall results of this project provide some support to the basic premise of combined enforcement, but raise some questions about the practicality of operating such a program over an extended period of time. To be effective, it appears that combined enforcement programs should incorporate increased intensity of enforcement of the target laws as well as a strong public information and education program supporting the effort. Only one of three sites was able to sustain increased enforcement in all three areas, and had the most positive results. Details of the programs and evaluation results for each of the sites appear in separate reports.