Number 314 September 2006

Traffic Safety Facts

Traffic Tech – Technology Transfer Series

Citizen Reporting of DUI – Extra Eyes to 

Identify Impaired Driving

U.S. Department of Transportation 400 Seventh Street, SW, Washington, DC 20590

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

The aftermath of the 2002 sniper shootings in 

Montgomery County, Maryland, and the Washington, 

D.C. metropolitan area, had an impact on impaireddriving enforcement. Law enforcement was already 

overextended from long overtime 

hours and increased security 

demands following the national 

tragedy on September 11, 2001. 

Montgomery County sought to 

motivate police officers to enforce 

impaired driving laws.

Operation Extra Eyes

The Montgomery County Police 

Department created the multi-agency 

Enhanced Impaired Driving Task 

Force program to raise awareness, 

motivate officers, and educate the 

community. As part of this task force, 

Montgomery County developed 

Operation Extra Eyes. This program 

enlisted volunteer citizens, trained 

and then joined with them to monitor 

locations for underage drinking, drinking in public, 

and other alcohol violations. Enhanced saturation 

patrols incorporated Extra Eyes and Students Against 

Destructive Decisions (SADD) volunteers giving a 

more comprehensive focus to impaired driving.

Although citizen-reporting programs focusing on 

traffic violations are fairly widespread, little objective 

data exists on effectiveness. The National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration contracted with Pacific 

Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE) to assess 

the effectiveness of the Operation Extra Eyes program 

in reducing impaired driving activities.

Volunteer Organizational Structure

Volunteers are trained to detect potentially impaired 

drivers by applying the same detection cues as police 

officers. The volunteers serve as “extra eyes” for officers 

on patrol. All volunteers have strict 

safety guidelines; for example, 

they are not allowed to follow or 

confront a suspect, stop a vehicle, 

or put themselves in harm’s way. 

SADD members are recruited from 

local high schools to help officers 

on a variety of community services 

activities including the Extra Eyes

program.

Generally, Extra Eyes volunteers are 

deployed with sworn personnel 

during saturation patrols or other 

impaired driving enforcement 

activities and in teams of two or 

more. A supervisor oversees the 

operation. 

On a typical Extra Eyes evening, volunteers meet with 

officers for a briefing. Volunteers are then equipped 

with binoculars and police radios and are deployed 

in their unmarked civilian cars to predetermined 

locations, typically near drinking establishments. When 

the volunteers sight a suspected impaired individual, 

they radio the location, a description of the individual 

and vehicle, and the cues they have witnessed to an 

officer, who then observes the suspected offender, and 

establishes probable cause if appropriate, and makes 

an arrest.
TRAFFIC TECH is a publication to disseminate information 

about traffic safety programs, including evaluations, innovative programs, and new publications. Feel free to copy it 

as you wish. If you would like to receive a copy, contact 

Melissa Cheung, MPH, Editor, fax 202-366-7096, e-mail: 

melissa.cheung@nhtsa.dot.gov. 

400 Seventh Street SW.

NTI-130

Washington, DC 20590

Evaluation Methodology

The researchers interviewed Extra Eyes participants 

to understand the program’s history, operation, and 

perceived value. They also surveyed, as suggested 

by program managers, Montgomery County patrol 

officers, including officers who have and have 

not participated in the program. PIRE collected 

data on driving under the influence (DUI) arrests, 

alcohol-related crashes, media coverage, and public 

awareness information in Montgomery County. The 

researchers compared this with data collected from 

two comparison Maryland counties — Prince George’s 

and Anne Arundel counties — neither of which has an 

Extra Eyes program.

Results

Over four years (2002–2005), there were 25 Extra Eyes

activities, an average of 6 per year. On every evening 

but one, where activities took place and arrest data 

were available, at least one DUI offender was arrested 

in the county. The number of DUI arrests per evening 

ranged from 1 to 17.

Conclusions

This study found that the Extra Eyes program is 

perceived by the program participants as beneficial 

as it served to motivate and intensify enforcement 

productivity, the original intent of the program.

Public awareness and survey data, arrest statistics, 

and alcohol-related crash trends did not indicate 

reductions in impaired-driving activity or crashes. 

This may have occurred because of a number of 

factors: (1) the program was in partial implementation 

before its formal kick-off and thus a clear-cut initiation 

point was absent, (2) the program was relatively small 

compared to the geographical and population size of 

Montgomery County, and (3) there was no concerted 

publicity effort launched to enhance the deterrence 

potential of the enforcement program. The Extra Eyes

program appears to have met its goal of motivating 

officers and enlisting volunteers for the detection of 

impaired drivers.

To enhance the potential of similar programs, it may 

be necessary to increase the public’s awareness of the 

additional “eyes” looking for impaired drivers. This 

type of general deterrence strategy could reduce the 

number of individuals driving impaired.

How to Order

For a copy of Citizen Reporting of DUI – Extra Eyes 

to Identify Impaired Driving, write to the Office of 

Impaired Driving and Occupant Protection, NHTSA, 

NTI-111, 400 Seventh Street SW., Washington, DC 

20590 or send a fax to 202-366-2766. The report may be 

downloaded from www.nhtsa.dot.gov. Joey W. Syner 

served as the task order manager for this project.