The curriculum seemed to be particularly effective for kids who drank very little. More than one quarter of the drivers killed in crashes had been drinking. Although it has reduced underage drinking and driving fatalities, we still have a problem. Although driving after drinking is potentially deadly under any circumstances, it is particularly dangerous when teenagers do it. Not only is their drinking illegal, because the minimum drinking age in the United States is 21 years of age, but so too is their driving after drinking.
Every state has a zero-tolerance law.
Under these laws, teenage drivers detected with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.02 grams per deciliter or above will lose their driver's licenses. Legal interventions have been evaluated best, because they go into place at one given time, all over a state. But a high school prevention program doesn't work that way. It's usually put into place in one high school, often for a short period of time, and it's very difficult to measure its effects. One of the really good things about Shope's study is that she finds effects in long-term traffic offense data.