Original article
The Effect on Teenage Risky Driving of Feedback From a Safety Monitoring System: A Randomized Controlled Trial

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.11.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Purpose

Teenage risky driving may be due to teenagers not knowing what is risky, preferring risk, or the lack of consequences. Elevated gravitational-force (g-force) events, caused mainly by hard braking and sharp turns, provide a valid measure of risky driving and are the target of interventions using in-vehicle data recording and feedback devices. The effect of two forms of feedback about risky driving events to teenagers only or to teenagers and their parents was tested in a randomized controlled trial.

Methods

Ninety parent-teen dyads were randomized to one of two groups: (1) immediate feedback to teens (Lights Only); or (2) immediate feedback to teens plus family access to event videos and ranking of the teen relative to other teenage drivers (Lights Plus). Participants' vehicles were instrumented with data recording devices and events exceeding .5 g were assessed for 2 weeks of baseline and 13 weeks of feedback.

Results

Growth curve analysis with random slopes yielded a significant decrease in event rates for the Lights Plus group (slope = −.11, p < .01), but no change for the Lights Only group (slope = .05, p = .67) across the 15 weeks. A large effect size of 1.67 favored the Lights Plus group.

Conclusions

Provision of feedback with possible consequences associated with parents being informed reduced risky driving, whereas immediate feedback only to teenagers did not.

Section snippets

Participants

Parent-teen dyads were recruited from high schools in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and screened. Inclusion requirements were as follows: a Level 2 Michigan driver license (allows independent, unsupervised driving) issued in the prior 30 days; regular access to a vehicle that could be instrumented for the 15-week study period; access to the Internet; living at home with at least one parent; not older than age 18; and able to speak and read English. Incentives of $100 to the parent and teenager at

Results

The flow of participants through the study is shown in Figure 1. Of 197 respondents, 90 were enrolled and final analyses were conducted using the data from 88 of the 90 participants, which were mostly white and included 46 males and 42 females with an average age of 16.4 years. There were no treatment group differences in psychosocial measures.

Event rates were not significantly different in the LO and L+ groups during the 2-week baseline period. Table 1 shows that the weekly means and standard

Discussion

This is the first randomized trial with novice teenage drivers to evaluate the effects on elevated g-force event rates of different forms of feedback from event-activated data recorders equipped with cameras. Our data show significant group differences in g-force event rates, with declines over time in the L+ but not in the LO group, with a large effect size of 1.67 [26]. If devices of this sort could prevent risky driving, even for a few months after licensing, they might help reduce the

Conclusion

The data support the hypothesis that risky driving, as measured by elevated g-force event rates, declined when immediate feedback in the form of a blinking light, plus web access to the video of these events, and weekly reports made available to teenage drivers and their parents, but not when feedback only was provided to the teenage drivers. If confirmed in future studies, the implications for policy are that parent involvement is essential to the prevention of novice teenage risky driving.

References (29)

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    However, such behaviour was significantly reduced in the connected environment when young drivers were assisted with driving aids. On the other hand, Simons-Morton et al. (2013) found that middle-aged drivers braked slowly when they received feedback from a safety monitoring system, complementing the behaviour of middle-aged drivers observed in our study. Overall, the connected environment appeared to provide safety benefits to both age groups, with higher benefits for middle-aged drivers.

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