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PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Data collected by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicates
that teenagers are involved in more motor vehicle collisions
than any other age group—moreover, teenagers are more likely
to be killed or injured in a crash. In the city of Salinas, California,
surveys of high school students revealed that drinking and driving
had risen from 5 percent in 1994 to 22 percent in 1996. The students
also reported that more than 50 percent had ridden with a driver
who had been drinking. These statistics are particularly acute
in a community where 10 percent of the population is comprised
of youth ages 15 to 20 years-old.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The goal of the STEPS
(Safe Teens Empowerment Project in Salinas) program was to reduce
injuries and fatalities resulting from alcohol-related motor
vehicle crashes. Program administrators set several objectives
designed to aid in reaching the program goal:
- Expand and adapt existing,
successful adult-focused programs to emphasize youth
- Design enforcement
activities to reduce teen access to alcohol, as well as to eliminate
teen drinking and driving
- Expand community support
for enforcement through education and media campaigns
- Empower teens to become
community safety leaders for the purpose of promoting community
policy regarding safety and teen alcohol use
STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES
Encouragement in developing
the STEPS program arose through the efforts of a powerful community
coalition, created in 1994 to address the problem of injuries
and fatalities sustained as a result of alcohol-related crashes
involving adult drivers and passengers. The community coalition
developed PARTS (Preventing Alcohol Related Trauma in Salinas),
an outgrowth of the Prevention Research Center's Community Trials
Project, and was successful in promoting policy to meet the safety
mission of the organization. Based on the success of the PARTS
program, the PARTS community coalition refined and expanded their
safety efforts to include youth, by developing the STEPS program.
The STEPS program was
established in March 1997, as one of Salinas' Safe Communities
activities, and was aided by the financial assistance of the
California State Department of Health Services, the California
Office of Traffic Safety and NHTSA. Building on the success of
the PARTS program, a parallel program was developed, using the
involvement of the Salinas schools as the key strategy in creating
a youth-focused safety program. A STEPS Council, representing
teens from local high schools, was formed to explore the nature
of the problem of youth alcohol use, and to develop these prevention
activities:
- Retail outlets selling
alcohol were tested to determine if youth were obtaining their
alcohol from retail vendors. Enforcement officials conducting
the tests discovered that more than 80 percent of retail outlets
did not sell to minors. This information prompted the STEPS Council
to pursue avenues of combating youth alcohol use other than enforcement
of laws banning sales to minors
- The STEPS Council focused
their prevention activities on public education. Media campaigns
by Salinas teens have featured public protests against drinking
and driving. The youth have used sobriety and driver license
checkpoints to display graphic depictions of the victims of crashes
involving alcohol. Teens advocating youth alcohol prevention
programs have been prominent at community meetings, at summits,
in schools, at fairs, on the radio and on television talk shows.
Many news articles and advertisements have also promoted the
themes and activities of STEPS
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