‘Just Drive’: An Employee-Based Intervention to Reduce Distracted Driving

Distracted driving is a major danger on today’s roadways. Employers play a critical role in developing distracted driving policies and promoting a culture of workplace driving safety. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an in-person work-based class to reduce distracted dr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of community health Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 370 - 376
Main Authors:	Hill, Linda, Rybar, Jill, Jahns, Jana, Lozano, Tanya, Baird, Sara
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	New York Springer US 01-04-2020 Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:	Accidents, Traffic - prevention & control Automobile Driving - education Automobile Driving - standards Community and Environmental Psychology Distracted driving Distracted Driving - prevention & control Distracted Driving - statistics & numerical data Driving ability Employees Ethics Hazards Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Humans Medicine Medicine & Public Health Motivation Original Paper Polls & surveys Roads Surveys and Questionnaires Vehicle safety Workplace Behavior change Program evaluation Distracted driving intervention Cell phone
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Summary:	Distracted driving is a major danger on today’s roadways. Employers play a critical role in developing distracted driving policies and promoting a culture of workplace driving safety. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an in-person work-based class to reduce distracted driving in participating employees. The “Just Drive—Take Action Against Distraction” class was designed by the UC San Diego Training, Research and Education for Driving Safety (TREDS) program to increase awareness of the dangers of distracted driving and to encourage employees to be safe and responsible drivers, both on and off the job. Participants completed pre- and post-anonymous surveys and, in a subset of attendees, volunteers were contacted via email 3 months post-intervention to complete a driving-behavior survey on Surveymonkey.com. 115 classes for 6896 employees were delivered at 54 agencies in Southern California. A total of 4928 participants completed the pre- and post-survey; 2014 n = 2263 and 2015 n = 2665. The course was found useful (85%) and engaging (85.6%). For non-commercial drivers, 55.6% of participants reported an increase of 80–100% in awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, and 67.2% reported an increase of 80–100% in their motivation to change. For commercial drivers, 71.3% reported a motivation increase of 80–100%. There were significant increases in knowledge for both groups. In the three-month follow-up survey, participants identified multiple positive changes in distracted driving behavior. This 1-h employer-supported intervention demonstrated positive changes in short-term intention and medium-term behaviors.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0094-5145 1573-3610
DOI:	10.1007/s10900-019-00752-4