The relationships among driving while impaired charges, police drinking-driving roadcheck activity, media coverage and alcohol-related casualty traffic accidents.

A correlational examination of 54 consecutive months of data from British Columbia on the relationships among the number of vehicles checked in police drinking-driving roadchecks, the number of driving while impaired (DWI) charges laid, the number and percent of alcohol-related casualty traffic accidents, and the extent of media coverage on drinking-driving (as measured by print media coverage), revealed that: the extent of media coverage, and not the extent of roadchecks or charging activity is probably the critical element in the reduction of drinking-driving accidents. The failure of the minimally publicized April-May 1984 British Columbia police roadcheck "blitz" to reduce either the number or proportion of alcohol-related casualty traffic accidents lent support to these correlational findings.