The Associated Press
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A new poll finds that two decades of education and enforcement have dramatically reshaped New Jerseyans’ attitudes about drinking and driving.
The Star-Ledger/Rutgers-Eagleton Poll on alcohol consumption found the change was particularly pronounced among young adults, a group that 20 years ago was most likely to drive drunk.
“We’re seeing a generation coming up that’s mixing alcohol and gasoline a lot less, and it’s an incredibly positive thing,” poll director Cliff Zukin told The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark. “It’s a huge cultural shift.”
The survey found that 9 percent of respondents have had a drink while operating a vehicle. In the 18- to 29-year-old age group, just 7 percent acknowledged the practice.
When the question was first asked in August 1984, 37 percent of young adults polled said they drank while driving.
It’s a message New Jerseyans seem to be getting, said Robert Pandina, director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
“It’s been a very clear and consistent message: that it’s a high-risk behavior, that it’s wrong, that it’s dangerous, and that law enforcement and prosecutors will be there for violators,” Pandina said.
Rutgers law student Andrew Johns, 24, says the message is so ingrained in his life that he would never consider getting behind the wheel after just a few drinks.
“It’s something I’ve learned in my family, but it’s also in the schools and the public as well,” Johns told The Star-Ledger. “I don’t want to go out and kill someone.”
Zukin, the poll’s director, said that while he would have liked to have asked respondents the more general question of whether they drive after drinking, changing the wording would have negated the value of asking the same question over 20 years.
The telephone poll of 904 people was conducted Jan. 7-13; the margin of error was 3.9 percentage points.