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
1 other identifier
interventional
1,139
1 country
1
Brief Summary
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.
Trial Health
Trial Health Score
Automated assessment based on enrollment pace, timeline, and geographic reach
participants targeted
Target at P75+ for not_applicable
Started Mar 2023
Shorter than P25 for not_applicable
1 active site
Health score is calculated from publicly available data and should be used for screening purposes only.
Trial Relationships
Click on a node to explore related trials.
Study Timeline
Key milestones and dates
First Submitted
Initial submission to the registry
July 18, 2022
CompletedFirst Posted
Study publicly available on registry
July 21, 2022
CompletedStudy Start
First participant enrolled
March 12, 2023
CompletedPrimary Completion
Last participant's last visit for primary outcome
June 29, 2023
CompletedStudy Completion
Last participant's last visit for all outcomes
June 29, 2023
CompletedOctober 3, 2023
September 1, 2023
4 months
July 18, 2022
September 29, 2023
Conditions
Keywords
Outcome Measures
Primary Outcomes (1)
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 Outcomes (1)
Seconds of active (handheld) phone use per hour of driving
105 days
Study Arms (4)
Control
OTHERParticipants 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 Engagement
EXPERIMENTALParticipants 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.
Raffle incentive + behavioral engagement
EXPERIMENTALParticipants 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.
Shared pot incentive + behavioral engagement
EXPERIMENTALParticipants 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.
Interventions
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.
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.
Participants will receive weekly text-message tips, informed by findings from survey responses, plus reminders to address stated obstacles.
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.
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.
Participants will receive a support SMS to troubleshoot, etc. if the Way to Drive app is not collecting trip data.
Those who have a perfect streak going midway through each week will receive an additional encouraging message cheering them on.
Eligibility Criteria
You may qualify if:
- 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
You may not qualify if:
- You are unable to read and understand English
Contact the study team to confirm eligibility.
Sponsors & Collaborators
- University of Pennsylvanialead
- General Motors (GM)collaborator
Study Sites (1)
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, United States
Related Publications (5)
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.
PMID: 26903657BACKGROUNDGershon 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.
PMID: 30799162BACKGROUNDKlauer 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.
PMID: 24382065BACKGROUNDSimons-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.
PMID: 24759443BACKGROUNDEbert JP, Yan R, Friday S, Small D, McDonald CC, Bartolozzi K, Delgado MK. Behavioral Interventions for Increasing Seat Belt Use and Decreasing Distracted Driving Using Telematics: A National Randomized Trial. Am J Public Health. 2025 May;115(5):758-768. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2024.307980. Epub 2025 Mar 13.
PMID: 40080744DERIVED
MeSH Terms
Interventions
Study Officials
- PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Mucio Delgado
University of Pennsylvania
Study Design
- Study Type
- interventional
- Phase
- not applicable
- Allocation
- RANDOMIZED
- Masking
- NONE
- Purpose
- TREATMENT
- Intervention Model
- FACTORIAL
- Sponsor Type
- OTHER
- Responsible Party
- PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
- PI Title
- Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine
Study Record Dates
First Submitted
July 18, 2022
First Posted
July 21, 2022
Study Start
March 12, 2023
Primary Completion
June 29, 2023
Study Completion
June 29, 2023
Last Updated
October 3, 2023
Record last verified: 2023-09
Data Sharing
- IPD Sharing
- Will not share