Kelli England Will

Alcohol-Impaired Driving

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews large-scale prevention approaches targeting driving under the influence (DUI) prevention. Driving-related skills include alertness, divided attention, vigilance, visual tracking, and quick reaction time to ever-changing information, and the ability to execute maneuvers based on these decisions. Drinking alcohol impairs a wide range of skills necessary for performing these tasks. Blood alcohol concentration (BAC), expressed as the percentage of alcohol in deciliters of blood, helps provide an indication of how much alcohol an individual has consumed in the past few hours. A positive BAC is present in 33–69% of fatally injured drivers and in 8–29% of nonfatally injured drivers. A BAC of 0.02 is enough to affect a drivers ability to divide attention. At a BAC of 0.05, a driver suffers impairment in eye movements; glare resistance, visual perception, reaction time, steering ability, information processing, and other aspects of psychomotor performance. DUI is a prevalent problem, and a number of strategies have been implemented that aim to decrease alcohol-impaired driving. Although the effects of some nonpolicy initiatives such as designated driver use are mixed, their relative effectiveness is enhanced when multiple interventions are combined. Mass media interventions, in particular, are reinforcing when combined with other interventions.

Young Children and “Tweens”

Publisher Summary Children are especially susceptible to road traffic injury, and morbidity, and mortality rates throughout the world reflect this vulnerability. Children interact with roadways in a number of ways. In most low- and middle-income countries, the majority of road users are not vehicle occupants but, rather, vulnerable road users without a protective shell around them. These include pedestrians, cyclists, motorcycle passengers, and passengers loading and unloading from public transport. Often, transport projects are not designed with the unique safety needs of children and other vulnerable road users in mind. Children may be required to walk alongside or weave in and out of traffic during their daily routines as they walk to school, complete their chores, and seek open areas to play. This, coupled with childrens limitations in development, is a recipe for disaster. In addition to the risk stemming from the manner in which children interact with the roadway environment, children possess a number of unique developmental characteristics that play into their susceptibility to roadway injuries. Childrens bodies are small and still developing and thus are less able to withstand crash forces. The interplay of a dangerous roadway environment and childrens developmental limitations has led to road traffic injury being one of childrens greatest threats to health and well being.

Challenges and Opportunities for Promoting Booster Seat Use: Progressive Dissemination of a High-Threat Message

Motivating parents to take certain safety precautions when traveling with their children remains challenging for advocates. Caregivers of booster-aged children are particularly difficult to reach because they do not consider their children to be of “safety-seat” age and have inherently low perceptions of vulnerability to crash injury. Unfortunately, most booster seat programs fail to adequately motivate their intended population because they are primarily informational in nature and rely on caregivers to seek out and attend to the information. In this article, interventions using threat appeal tactics and progressive dissemination methods are recommended to effectively target participation and perceptions of vulnerability among this population. Recent research on risk communication indicates that threat appeals are supported when they contain high threat and high efficacy components. Threat appeal tactics are particularly desirable when perception of vulnerability is low, as is the case with parents of booster-aged children. In addition to theoretical arguments for more aggressive intervention approaches, a case example is presented wherein such techniques were used to promote booster seat use. The intervention resulted in significant increases in knowledge, risk-reduction attitudes, sense of efficacy, and observed booster seat use. Through use of progressive dissemination methods, the intervention has reached an audience of 431,600 people and counting.

14 Development and initial validation of a distracted driving survey for teen drivers

Purpose Distracted driving encompasses a wide range of activities and can be defined as engaging in any activity that diverts eyes or attention away from driving. The relationship between distracted driving behaviours and motor vehicle collisions and mortality is well established. Teen drivers are among those with the highest rates of distracted driving and are overrepresented in distraction-related fatal crashes. However, as of yet, there is no brief measure that assesses distracted driving in this population and can easily be used for community- and school-based program evaluation. In the present study, we describe the development and initial validation of the Distracted Driving Survey for Teens (DDST). Methods Originally developed to evaluate the efficacy of a school-based intervention program, this 24-item Likert-type scale assesses teen driver attitudes and practices regarding driver distractions and is brief enough to be used in school settings or online. Survey questions were developed by a multidisciplinary research team, pilot-tested and evaluated in a developmental sample of 558 teen drivers in southeastern Virginia, ages 14–19 (M=16.1). Results An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed that ninety-seven percent of the common variance was explained by the following 3 factors: self-evaluation of distracted driving behaviours, beliefs about risks and consequences, and perceptions of personal susceptibility. Analyses demonstrated strong internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85 overall and alphas of 0.86, 0.79, and 0.73 across factors, respectively. The scale can be completed in approximately five to seven minutes, with total scores ranging from 24 ‘“ 120. Higher scores are reflective of greater levels of unsafe driving attitudes and practices. Conclusions The DDST demonstrates strong preliminary reliability and validity among teen drivers. Significance The DDST is a brief measure that assesses distracted driving among teens and can be used in community- and school-based program evaluation efforts.