floridajustice.comDrive Sober or Get Pulled Over
Also: Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. (predecessor tagline)
“Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over.”
NHTSA's national impaired-driving high-visibility enforcement crackdown, run around Labor Day and the winter holidays with state and local police and national paid media. The current tagline replaced 'Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.' with a retooled ad campaign.
- Years
- 2006–now
- Country
- United States
- Budget
- $13.8 million paid media for the 2023 Labor Day campaign (NHTSA)
- Topic
- AlcoholImpaired driving
- Asks people to
- StopSubstitute
- Strategy
- Fear appealPolicy paired
- Channel
- OutdoorRadioSocial (paid)TV
- Audience
- AdultsYoung adults
Evidence
ObservationalNo effect
Evaluation of the 2006 Labor Day crackdown (under the earlier tagline): media raised awareness of the crackdown and slightly raised perceived likelihood of being stopped, but there was no self-reported change in drinking-driving and alcohol-related fatalities were essentially unchanged from the year before. No evaluation of the current tagline found.
Sponsor (who paid)
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (U.S. DOT) Federal government, funder and coordinator
- State highway safety offices and law enforcement agencies State local government, enforcement
Credits (who made it)
Executions (individual ads)
- West Virginia Governor's Highway Safety Program ad, Dec 15, 2021 2021 · social-paid · meta-ad-library · 700K - 800K impressions · spend $4K - $4.5K
- NH Office of Highway Safety ad, Sep 7, 2026 2026 · social-paid · meta-ad-library · 200K - 250K impressions · spend $700 - $799
- Avoid seeing red and blue in your rearview by driving sober 2025 · social-paid · meta-ad-library · 100K - 125K impressions · spend $300 - $399
- West Virginia Governor's Highway Safety Program ad, Aug 26, 2020 2020 · social-paid · meta-ad-library · 40K - 45K impressions · spend $400 - $499
Related campaigns
- Click It or Ticket 2003–now
- Buzzed Driving Prevention 2005–now
- Designated Driver Campaign (Harvard Alcohol Project) 1988–now
Sources
- The 2006 National Labor Day Impaired Driving Enforcement Crackdown: Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. (NHTSA final report) evaluation
- Labor Day Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign 2023 (NHTSA press release) sponsor · 2023
- U.S. DOT launches Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over Labor Day high-visibility enforcement (NHTSA) sponsor · 2021
- Drunk driving awareness and arrests being stepped up by federal government (on the tagline change) news
Research notes
startYear 2006 is the first evaluated national Labor Day crackdown under the predecessor tagline; the switch to 'Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over' happened around 2010 (not confirmed). Consider splitting. Distinct from the Ad Council 'Buzzed Driving Is Drunk Driving' and drug-impaired driving work. Meta Ad Library / Google Ads Transparency Center: search advertiser 'NHTSA' / 'National Highway Traffic Safety Administration'. Credits checked 2026-10-22 against fetched pages: Tombras (agency news item, Jan 2018: The Drum named 'Tombras' Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration' Ad of the Day; iSpot lists a 2020 NHTSA 'Tsunami' spot, not re-opened). Decision (reversible): years start at 2017, the first spot a fetched page ties to this tagline; the queue proposed 2004-, which is when Tombras took the NHTSA account (O'Dwyer's), before the tagline existed.
Record cases/nhtsa-drive-sober-or-get-pulled-over.json, updated 2026-10-23· Link to this campaign