Organisation: Transport Research Laboratory
Amount awarded
£98,215
Completed
2017
Uploaded to Knowledge Centre
5 August 2021
Overview
This research set out to test the effectiveness of a driver behaviour intervention aimed at reducing close following behaviour (CFB).
The research consisted of a literature review into the key factors underpinning CFB, hotspot areas for collisions, and effective components of interventions shown to change other driver behaviours.
The literature review was used to design a behavioural intervention based on best practice. The intervention was then tested with an experimental group of five businesses and 85 participants and a comparison group of 79 participants across 48 businesses. The comparison group completed the pre and post survey but did not receive the intervention.
The report concludes that CFB is likely to be a ‘significant contributor to decreased road safety in the UK’, and as behavioural components are a significant element of CFB, developing effective behavioural interventions targeting CFB is a ‘sensible area for road safety investment’.
More detail
CFB has been shown to be irritating, frustrating and the cause of anxiety and anger in drivers – and has also been linked to increased collision risk.
While collision recording methods in the UK do not allow an accurate picture of its contribution to collisions, CFB is believed to be one of the principle factors leading to rear-end collisions.
The report says up to 94.8% of drivers have been found to leave insufficient headway between their vehicle and the vehicle in front.
People driving for work were selected as the target audience for the intervention as they have a higher accident risk than the general population, and are more blameworthy for collisions.
Key factors identified within the literature review included:
• Inexperience contributing to inattention, speed and distance judgment errors, and anticipation and adaptation errors
• Personal factors such as sensation seeking, locus of control, trait and state anger and aggression levels, mental workload, confidence in driving ability, attitudes towards risky behaviour, self-identity, values and habits
• External factors such as social norms, time pressures, traffic flow pressures, platoons, road works and type of vehicle.
The literature review also identified successful features of previous behaviour change projects, from both driver behaviour interventions and other behavioural interventions.
This led to the design of an intervention using key components including: a 90-minute peer group discussion of target behaviour and underlying factors; social contracts; implementation interventions; point of choice reminders; measurement and feedback; and a minimum eight-week intervention period, with reminders to embed new habits.
TRL also reviewed accident hotspot areas, including Bristol and Avon. Within this area, TRL recruited five businesses and ran eight workshops covering 85 people. TRL also recruited 79 comparison group participants across a further 54 companies spread across the UK.
TRL ran the intervention for eight weeks with each group, and evaluated the impact of the intervention through both qualitative 1 hour follow up teleconferences and quantitative surveys. The surveys consisted of a pre-survey filled out before the intervention, a post survey filled out after the final teleconference and three diary surveys designed to take snapshots of behaviour through the intervention.
Key findings included:
• Raised awareness of CFB in all participants across the entire eight-week period.
• Positive attitudinal change regarding the importance of CFB, and in terms of its prevalence.
• Self-reported behavioural shift in a significant number of participants.
• Clear lessons for improving the intervention.
Conclusions and recommendations
Conclusions and recommendations can be summarised as follows:
• CFB is an important area for further research, as a highly prevalent and likely significant contributor to decreased road safety in the UK. More specifically, research distinguishing the intervention’s impact on normal following distance versus what might be termed as ‘trigger-specific close following behaviour’, using larger samples and robust surveys, may advance understanding of the multiple ways in which this behaviour can manifest, and how it might be targeted by interventions.
• Behavioural components are a significant element of CFB; hence developing effective behavioural interventions targeting CFB is a sensible area for road safety investment.
• Qualitative analysis indicates the intervention developed as part of this study was effective in addressing contributory factors and self-perceived behaviour, on a self-reported basis. Further research is required to investigate this in more depth.
• Employee engagement is challenging, and should not be underestimated in terms of resource required to recruit employers and employees.
• Interest in rolling this intervention out further has been expressed by two of the participating companies. Significant positive feedback on the intervention was given by participants, indicating this is welcome once initial engagement challenges are overcome.
For more information and to access the full project report visit the Road Safety Trust website:
https://www.roadsafetytrust.org.uk/funded-projects/16/trl-close-driving-behaviour