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Background

Across many countries in the world today, there exist many interventions and programs aimed at improving the lives of the local community members. To name a few examples, communities have united to help develop solutions for their most pressing needs, including domestic violence, health, security, and education. Worth noting, in order to tell if the initiatives are effective, evaluation is necessary. Evaluation has to do with the systematic gathering of all data concerning the characteristics, activities, and outcomes of a particular program (Vedung, 88). The intention is to use this information to make decisions on the necessary areas of improvement. By making proper judgments grading the program at hand, the program is better placed to achieve its future goals. Needless to say, proper evaluation is feasible and must be carried out within the stipulated time, resources, and political context. Furthermore, evaluation is done to serve a specific purpose, as such, ethics should be observed in order to find accurate findings. The questions found in an evaluation depend on project length, the interviewer, and the intended use of the collected information. This essay touches on the subject matter of evaluation within the context of Drive Smart, a road safety program aimed at curbing drunk driving through public intervention and education. Further, it touches on the would-be goals and the standards for judgment for the evaluation.

Description of the Subject Matter

Drive Smart Program is the focus of the evaluation. This program aims at saving lives through eliminating drunk driving through the avenue of education and public intervention. In this scenario, the evaluation must involve all the necessary stakeholders, including those interested and those being impacted by it (Fell, 38). The government’s task force on road safety matters seeks to introduce a docket that advocates for smart driving. The program aims at helping millions of lives lost to drunk driving across various communities. There is a need for all the community members to come to terms with the dimensions of the problem of reckless driving. As communities get trained on strategies of maintaining road safety on the road, both as drivers and passengers, they also need to be enlightened about the necessary actions that can be taken to fix this problem that has many negative consequences on individuals and, by extension, the society. Worth noting, the government task forces have identified a road safety program abroad. The program entails all the aspects the team has been searching for. The Taskforce seeks to adapt this program as a pilot program. To design the program to suit their needs perfectly, the task force has to liaise with the organization. Worth noting, if the pilot program emerges successful, the task force shall proceed to expand its implementation in various communities across the state. The task force has some monies available to fund the entire program to completion.

Goals of the Evaluation

The evaluation will be conducted on the pilot program, which will inform the implementation of subsequent programs. The primary purpose of evaluating the Drive Smart program is to determine its effectiveness in attaining the set goals and objectives and know the program’s reception from the community. Additionally, it will provide the project engineers with the cost implications of the adoption of the program. The most interested individuals in the evaluation are the participants of the program, task force members, and potential donors who would be interested in supporting the expansion of the program. The subject matter of evaluating pilot programs for road safety is the best as it helps the people designing the project know if it is achieving the intended objectives. Because the evaluation is being done on a first-time project, lessons learnt from this experience will be used to improve future projects even before they are implemented.

Standards of Judgment

Some of the criteria that can be employed to assess Drive Smart program’s efficiency entail having laid out deliverables that will be used to probe the performance of a program. For instance, data shall be gathered from community members regarding their familiarity levels with the project and project goals. This can be done by administering anonymous questionnaires with the community members. Open-ended questionnaires are most preferred as it grants them an opportunity to note down how they came to know about the program and the kind of information that was availed to them about the project goals. Another standard that can be used is probing the statistics of individuals that use safe rides such as Uber and other taxis to get home. This will help determine the visibility as well as the impact of the program. The more number of people found to be using taxis following a drinking spree indicates a positive reception from its intended audience. Moreover, knowing the number of individuals who report drunk driving can also be used to judge the project’s performance. This is an indication that community education is impacting positively on the behavior of people. Additionally, it is prudent that the team pay attention to the total number of road accidents occurring during the night. This information can be accessed by National Statics Corporations and from traffic police dockets of the federal and state police. Finding out the number of accidents taking place is a viable way of identifying behavioral change in the intended target audience.

For this program to be successful, standards of performance for the laid out criteria must be developed. These standards are thresholds used for determining whether the project is successful of not. First, the project will be deemed successful only if 80% of the total community residents will have known about the project and its goals within the first year. Another indicator of success would be if there is a 20% increase within the first year in the individuals using taxis. Furthermore, a 20% decrease in the whistleblowers that report incidences of drunk driving would sign that the intended outcomes are being achieved. Lastly, if the number of car accidents recorded every night decreases by 10% within the first two years, it would be a positive indication of the programs performance. Before concluding as to whether the project should continue or not, there is a need to determine if the foreseen changes stem from the program implementers efforts or other factors.

Conclusion

Evaluation is a strategy used by program implementers to assess the program’s efficiency and determine whether the project is attaining its intended goals and objectives. In the world today, many development programs are being implemented by development partners. They hope to improve the lives of the community by using the available resources and time. Drive Smart is a safety initiative aimed at saving lives through eliminating drunk driving through the avenue of education and public intervention. In conjunction with the task force from the Office of the Governor, community members will collaborate on the project. Being a pilot project, Drive Smart aims to determine the effectiveness in attaining the set goals and objectives and know the reception the program will get from the community. Further, it will provide the project engineers the cost implications of adoption of the program. Some standards of judgment that can be employed include collecting data about the residents’ familiarity with the project’s goal and taking note of the number of accidents recorded during the night. Another criterion is finding out the member of people that report instances of drunken driving.

Works Cited

Fell, James C., et al. Evaluation of responsible beverage service to reduce impaired driving by 21-to 34-year-old drivers. No. DOT HS 812 398. United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2017.

Vedung, Evert. Public policy and program evaluation. Routledge, 2017.