Increasing Seat Belt Wearing and Decreasing Handheld Phone Use While Driving

Behavioral Interventions to Increase Seat Belt Wearing and Decrease Handheld Phone Use While Driving

The study team is proposing to conduct a randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of behavioral and financial incentives on phone use while driving and seat belt adherence. Each arm will receive a support text if their app is not collecting data. The behavioral engagement intervention includes persuasive education, mental contrasting with implementation intentions, customized habit tips, weekly feedback about participants' streaks, and encouraging SMS texts. The two financial incentive interventions add on weekly raffles or shared pots for participants with perfect streaks.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Distracted Driving; Impaired Driving; Driving Behaviors
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Weekly SMS Support text; Behavioral: Persuasive education; Behavioral: WOOP (aka, mental contrasting with implementation intentions., Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan); Behavioral: Customized Habit Tips; Behavioral: Weekly SMS Encouragement; Behavioral: Raffle Financial Incentive; Behavioral: Shared Pot Financial Incentive

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1139
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Dina Abdel-Rahman, BS; Phone Number: 267-438-7201; Email: dina.abdel-rahman@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Study Locations

• United States
  • Pennsylvania
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
      • University of Pennsylvania

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Are a GM/OnStar customer.
• Are 18 or older.
• Meet minimum trip requirements.
• Uses vehicle with OnStar
• At least 5 weeks of baseline trip data with >=8 trips/week at baseline on average
• Baseline seat belt use <= 75% on trips less than 2 miles and <= 90 on trips greater than 2 miles
• English reading ability
• Have an email address
• Have a smartphone with iPhone iOS 12 or later or Android OS 7 or later

Exclusion Criteria:

• You are unable to read and understand English

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Factorial Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Other: Control; Participants are asked to buckle up and not engage in handheld phone use while driving. No further messaging will be provided about their behavior, and participants will not receive financial incentives for avoiding risky driving behavior.	Behavioral: Weekly SMS Support text; Participants will receive a support SMS to troubleshoot, etc. if the Way to Drive app is not collecting trip data.
Experimental: Behavioral Engagement; Participants will receive a multicomponent safer driving intervention based on behavioral science. This will include persuasive education, WOOP (mental contrasting with implementation intentions) and customized habit tips.	Behavioral: Weekly SMS Support text; Participants will receive a support SMS to troubleshoot, etc. if the Way to Drive app is not collecting trip data.; Behavioral: Persuasive education; The research team will use psychology and communications research to present information about seat belts and distracted driving in a way that builds intrinsic motivation to change. Because positively framed messages are more effective at promoting seat belt wearing, the team's messaging will employ this framing. Education will address common reasons that survey participants give for not consistently buckling up or for phone use while driving.; Behavioral: WOOP (aka, mental contrasting with implementation intentions., Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan); Participants will receive an intervention on improving driving behavior with a specific goal in mind and how to reach that goal. Participants will do this by thinking through 4 parts: a wish, an outcome, an obstacle and a plan. This has been shown to build motivation, and help achieve the desired change.; Behavioral: Customized Habit Tips; Participants will receive weekly text-message tips, informed by findings from survey responses, plus reminders to address stated obstacles.; Behavioral: Weekly SMS Encouragement; Those who have a perfect streak going midway through each week will receive an additional encouraging message cheering them on.
Experimental: Raffle incentive + behavioral engagement; Participants will receive the entire multicomponent safer driving behavioral intervention from arm 2. Participants will also be eligible for the Raffle Financial incentive, where participants can earn prize money for seat belt adherence and/or no phone use while driving.	Behavioral: Weekly SMS Support text; Participants will receive a support SMS to troubleshoot, etc. if the Way to Drive app is not collecting trip data.; Behavioral: Persuasive education; The research team will use psychology and communications research to present information about seat belts and distracted driving in a way that builds intrinsic motivation to change. Because positively framed messages are more effective at promoting seat belt wearing, the team's messaging will employ this framing. Education will address common reasons that survey participants give for not consistently buckling up or for phone use while driving.; Behavioral: WOOP (aka, mental contrasting with implementation intentions., Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan); Participants will receive an intervention on improving driving behavior with a specific goal in mind and how to reach that goal. Participants will do this by thinking through 4 parts: a wish, an outcome, an obstacle and a plan. This has been shown to build motivation, and help achieve the desired change.; Behavioral: Customized Habit Tips; Participants will receive weekly text-message tips, informed by findings from survey responses, plus reminders to address stated obstacles.; Behavioral: Weekly SMS Encouragement; Those who have a perfect streak going midway through each week will receive an additional encouraging message cheering them on.; Behavioral: Raffle Financial Incentive; Each week, participants who adhere to seat belt use or abstain from phone use while driving get a chance at prize money. One winner will be randomly chosen for each target behavior and earn prize money; the rest will not receive compensation.
Experimental: Shared pot incentive + behavioral engagement; Participants will receive the entire multicomponent safer driving behavioral intervention from arm 2. This arm will be identical to Arm 3, except there will be a shared pot financial incentive instead of a raffle. Participants that abstain from phone use while driving and seat belt adherence earn an equal share of prize money allocated for the entire group.	Behavioral: Weekly SMS Support text; Participants will receive a support SMS to troubleshoot, etc. if the Way to Drive app is not collecting trip data.; Behavioral: Persuasive education; The research team will use psychology and communications research to present information about seat belts and distracted driving in a way that builds intrinsic motivation to change. Because positively framed messages are more effective at promoting seat belt wearing, the team's messaging will employ this framing. Education will address common reasons that survey participants give for not consistently buckling up or for phone use while driving.; Behavioral: WOOP (aka, mental contrasting with implementation intentions., Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan); Participants will receive an intervention on improving driving behavior with a specific goal in mind and how to reach that goal. Participants will do this by thinking through 4 parts: a wish, an outcome, an obstacle and a plan. This has been shown to build motivation, and help achieve the desired change.; Behavioral: Customized Habit Tips; Participants will receive weekly text-message tips, informed by findings from survey responses, plus reminders to address stated obstacles.; Behavioral: Weekly SMS Encouragement; Those who have a perfect streak going midway through each week will receive an additional encouraging message cheering them on.; Behavioral: Shared Pot Financial Incentive; This will be identical to the raffle incentive, except that each week participants who adhere to seat belt use or abstain from phone use while driving will be guaranteed an equal share of prize money.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Proportion of trips with seat belt use	Calculated as the number of trips during which a driver's seat belt click was detected, divided by total number of trips (defined as 1/10 of a mile or greater).	105 days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Seconds of active (handheld) phone use per hour of driving	This is a composite outcome that measures the proportion of total trip time in which the driver is engaged in handheld phone call use or non-call handheld use (e.g. texting, swiping, and typing), as measured by the Way to Drive app.	105 days

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Collaborators: General Motors (GM)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Mucio Delgado, University of Pennsylvania

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Klauer SG, Guo F, Simons-Morton BG, Ouimet MC, Lee SE, Dingus TA. Distracted driving and risk of road crashes among novice and experienced drivers. N Engl J Med. 2014 Jan 2;370(1):54-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa1204142.
• Dingus TA, Guo F, Lee S, Antin JF, Perez M, Buchanan-King M, Hankey J. Driver crash risk factors and prevalence evaluation using naturalistic driving data. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Mar 8;113(10):2636-41. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1513271113. Epub 2016 Feb 22.
• Gershon P, Sita KR, Zhu C, Ehsani JP, Klauer SG, Dingus TA, Simons-Morton BG. Distracted Driving, Visual Inattention, and Crash Risk Among Teenage Drivers. Am J Prev Med. 2019 Apr;56(4):494-500. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2018.11.024. Epub 2019 Feb 21.
• Simons-Morton BG, Guo F, Klauer SG, Ehsani JP, Pradhan AK. Keep your eyes on the road: young driver crash risk increases according to duration of distraction. J Adolesc Health. 2014 May;54(5 Suppl):S61-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2013.11.021.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 12, 2023
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 29, 2023
• Study Completion (Actual): June 29, 2023

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 18, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 18, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): July 21, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): October 3, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 29, 2023
• Last Verified: September 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Financial Incentives; Habit Formation; Phone Use While Driving; Seat Belt Wearing
• Other Study ID Numbers: 851411

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No