This preliminary study compared the effectiveness of a new treatment for problem drivers with the National Safety Council's Defensive Driving Course (DDC) and a control group. Hearing officers from four large Florida cities randomly assigned 432 problem drivers, whose licenses had been suspended, to three groups. Safety officers from each of the four locations taught both the experimental course and the DDC. Pretests and posttests on driving knowlege and attitudes were administered to the three groups. Driving record data of the 358 subjects who completed treatment were used to help identify long-term effectiveness of the treatments. Although there was no significant improvements between the groups in driving knowledge or in attitudes after treatment, the experimental group had a greater reduction than the DDC group and a significantly greater reduction than the control group in traffic law violations and collisions during a one year follow-up period. A larger investigation of the effectiveness of the experimental course is recommended.

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