John spent a year researching other programmes and talked to kids to find out what they'd respond to.
"They said 'don't show us TV ads, we know they're actors'. I found the best way was to expose them to all kinds of learning ... see, feel, listen ... a multi-dimensional learning experience. Every person on the course 'gets it' at some stage. We keep reinforcing it. It's about saying the same thing in a million different ways."
RID targets people with at least three drink-driving convictions. John concedes this group may be a tougher bunch to get through to because their behaviours and attitudes are so entrenched.
John devised a screening and assessment tool for RID. He said international best practice with recidivist offenders was to use a screening and assessment tool to determine a person's readiness to change and their drug and alcohol use.
John researched several internationally-accepted screening and assessment tools and devised his own, better geared toward New Zealand.
The RID programme that began earlier this week has 18 participants, aged 19-52 and an average age of 32. While Right Track participants are predominantly male (about 90 per cent), RID participants are about 72 per cent male and the rest female.
John hopes RID will be as successful as Right Track. Police statistics show about 82 per cent of participants hadn't committed another driving offence more than a year after completing the programme.
So successful is Right Track that police have asked if they can refer people with non-driving convictions.
John said statistics showed that not only do driving behaviours change as a result of the course but 78 per cent of participants stopped all offending.
John said the support for the course in Hamilton was "incredible".
"I want to emphasise how incredible the contribution is from Waikato Police, the Fire Service, Waikato DHB, Hamilton City Council. The senior trauma doctor and nurse give up their Saturday to speak to the group." He said Williams Salvage also assisted in the course.
RID will in Hamilton runs from this month to July and October to December.
BACK ON TRACK
Lara (not her real name) first lost her driver licence for six months when she was picked up for drink driving in 2010.
She recorded a breath-alcohol level of 987mcg. She was picked up again in November last year. This time she blew 1042mcg.
Lara viewed drink driving as normal so when she referred herself to the Right Track programme she thought completing the course would lighten her next sentence.
She says the programme changed the way she thinks about all aspects of her life, not just drink driving.
Before, Lara would drink with her older boyfriend and his friends and try to keep up with them. She thought nothing of getting behind the wheel after she'd been drinking.
"I was naive to think I wouldn't become one of the statistics. The course was a real eye-opener. Thank God I got caught. It was only a matter of time ... ," she says, trailing off.
The penny dropped for Lara when she heard a mother speak about the daughter she lost almost two decades ago in a drink driving accident.
"She was still just so broken. I thought 'what if I did that to someone'."
A mock car crash demonstration also hit home. "It was so unbelievably real. It scared me so much, it was that intense."
The second oldest of six children, Lara hasn't told her family about her second DIC charge. She can't bring herself to tell her mother who she calls "a saint".
Lara accepts she has to deal with the consequences of her choice to drink and drive. She knows the second sentence will be tougher than the first and she's worried about losing her job when she loses her licence.
"I will never do it again. I have so much regret, but I'm so thankful I got caught. Drink driving is such a selfish act."
