Final Report: A Peer-to-Peer Traffic Safety Campaign

The purpose of this project was to implement a peer-to-peer driver’s safety program designed for high school students. This project builds upon an effective peer-to-peer outreach effort in Texas entitled Teens in the Driver Seat (TDS), the nation’s first peer-to-peer driving safety program run by teens for teens. This program is based on the idea that teens will pay more attention to ideas that are presented by their peers than to those that come from adults. The peer-to-peer traffic safety campaign program empowers high school students to create methods of outreach to their peers. The implementation of this project followed that of the TDS high school program developed by the Texas Transportation Institute, and was assessed using a case–control experimental design across two urban and two rural Montana high schools that included approximately 2,700 students. Results did show some early success in improving teens’ awareness of the most dangerous risk factors for teen drivers. Moreover, the program was found to be effective in reaching even those teens in the schools that were not affiliated with the program. These results were more prominent in the rural group than the urban group. However, self-reported driving behaviors did not reflect this change (except for an increase in seatbelt usage). Urban teens reported being influenced most by their peers, closely followed by a parent, whereas rural teens reported being nearly equally influenced by their peers and a parent. Another key finding was that the effectiveness of certain types of peer-to-peer media, such as posters,differed by school size.

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• Summary URL:
  https://www.mdt.mt.gov/research/projects/safety/peer_to_peer.shtml
• Corporate Authors:

  Western Transportation Institute

  Montana State University, Bozeman
  P.O. Box 174250
  Bozeman, MT  United States  59717-4250

  Montana Department of Transportation

  2701 Prospect Avenue
  P.O. Box 201001
  Helena, MT  United States  59620-1001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Stanley, Laura
  • Plumb, Carolyn
  • Pimley, Eric
  • Borden, Kelly
• Publication Date: 2014-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 201p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Attitudes; Behavior modification; High school students; Outreach; Parents; Peer groups; Rural areas; Safety campaigns; Teenage drivers; Traffic safety; Traffic safety education; Urban areas
• Geographic Terms: Montana
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01537858
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA/MT-14-003/8218
• Contract Numbers: 8218
• Files: TRIS, ATRI, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Sep 20 2014 5:50PM