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Changing Speeding Behaviour in Scotland: An evaluation of the 'Foolsspeed' campaign
CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS
Changing drivers' speeding behaviour is a difficult but important challenge for those working in road safety. The beliefs, values and norms which encourage people to speed are widely held, and, for some drivers, strongly entrenched. In particular, beliefs in one's superiority as a driver, an illusory sense of control, and the view that speeding is a normative and even majority behaviour all contribute to and legitimise speeding. Given the powerful influence of such beliefs and perceptions, it has been recognised that strategies to reduce speeding should include not only externally-focused measures (such as enforcement and road engineering) but also internally-focused measures - that is, they should seek to address the psychological mechanisms which motivate drivers to speed.
The Theory of Planned Behaviour provides a useful model for identifying and understanding these mechanisms. Previous applications of the model to speeding behaviour suggest that it is effective both in predicting speeding and in identifying the specific attitudinal and other factors which contribute to speeding (e.g. Parker et al 1992, Stradling & Parker 1996, Parker et al 1995). Although the potential of the TPB to assist in the design of behaviour change interventions, as well as in the prediction of behaviour, has been noted (e.g. Parker et al 1996), few studies have assessed the effectiveness of interventions based on the TPB. One such study (Parker et al 1996) has provided encouraging support for an intervention strategy underpinned by the TPB. The strategy of the Foolsspeed campaign was to use the Theory of Planned Behaviour model, together with insights from previous applications of the model, to design a media-based intervention which would influence speeding by targeting the key determinants of speeding: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. Our study suggests that the TPB provides a useful framework for designing and planning theoretically rigorous road safety interventions.
Foolsspeed was designed for a general adult driving population, with a core target of male drivers and drivers in non-manual jobs, groups known to have a higher incidence of speeding. It was decided that in order to increase drivers' identification and engagement with the advertising, a shock-horror approach would be eschewed in favour of a low-key realistic style depicting everyday driving scenarios. Fear-arousing messages are successful in gaining audience attention, but there is a risk that advertising which portrays extreme threats is either avoided after initial viewing because it is too distressing, or is discounted by viewers as unrealistic, not personally relevant, and lacking in credibility (Snipes et al 1999, deTurck et al 1992, Witte et al 1998, Blumberg 2000, Ruiter et al 2001). It was hoped that a more empathetic and credible style of road safety advertising (Slater 1999) would prove equally, if not more, effective in engaging audiences.
The results reported here provide strong support for the approach adopted in the Foolsspeed campaign. When evaluated against communication measures - awareness, recall, identification, comprehension of message, liking, emotional engagement and so forth - the Foolsspeed campaign demonstrated that it is possible to create memorable and involving advertising without using graphic and fear-inducing images. The campaign generated high levels of spontaneous awareness and prompted recall for a social advertising campaign of moderate media spend (1.8m over three to four years). Spontaneous (open-ended) and prompted reactions to the ads suggested that respondents liked the ads, understood their intended messages, identified to varying extents with the scenarios and behaviours depicted, and were engaged by them to reassess their own feelings about driving and driving behaviour. Encouragingly, drivers who reported the most frequent speeding behaviour often displayed the strongest levels of identification and were most strongly challenged by the ads to reassess their own driving behaviour.
When evaluated in terms of impact on TPB measures, however, a more mixed picture emerges. There were significant changes (in an anti-speeding direction) over the campaign period in the three attitudinal components - composite Attitude towards the Behaviour, composite Positive Affective Beliefs and composite Negative Affective Beliefs. These changes were nearly always significantly associated with awareness of the Mirror ad - i.e. they did not occur in those who did not see the Mirror ad - providing reasonable support for the conclusion that the Mirror ad had a favourable effect on attitudes and affective beliefs about speeding.
Less encouragingly, there was no evidence that desired changes occurred in composite Subjective Norms or composite Perceived Behavioural Control over the campaign period. Minor changes did occur in the items which make up these two components, but these were either short-lived or not always in the desired anti-speeding direction. There appears, at best, only weak evidence that awareness of the Friends and Family ad had an effect on subjective norms, and no evidence that awareness of the Simon Says ad had an effect on perceived behavioural control.
There are a number of possible explanations for these results. It is possible that the Mirror ad was conceptually stronger (and more persuasive) than the Friends and Family and Simon Says ads, with the result that the ad generated higher initial recall and had a greater impact on the attitudinal components it was designed to influence. The Mirror ad was also the earliest of the three ads to be screened, so may have benefited from prolonged and cumulative exposure effects. In turn, the Friends and Family ad and Simon Says ad may have been conceptually weaker in how they addressed and challenged their respective components, Subjective Norms ad Perceived Behavioural Control. In addition, it may be that Subjective Norms and Perceived Behavioural Control are less easy to operationalise in communication terms, or are less susceptible to change, by communications means alone, than Attitudes. Both components arguably have an external dimension: Subjective Norms potentially comprise both the respondent's perceptions of what significant others feel and what these significant others do actually feel, while Perceived Behavioural Control comprises both internal control factors (for example, feelings of frustration when sticking to the speed limit) and external control factors (for example, direct pressure from the traffic environment) (Conner & Sparks 1995).
In conclusion, the Foolsspeed campaign appears to have performed well in communication terms, and to have had a favourable impact on attitudes towards speeding. Its apparent failure, according to the evidence here, to influence the other core components of the TPB should be put into context. It is important to have a realistic view of what the mass media can achieve in terms of social change. Several decades of research into the effectiveness of mass media advertising as a public health intervention approach have concluded that advertising can be an effective and cost-effective way of raising awareness of an issue - putting it on the public agenda - and of stimulating attitude change (Dorn & Murji 1992, Flay & Burton 1990, Rice & Atkin 1994, Backer et al 1992, Bandura 1994, Hastings & Stead 1999, Petty & Priester 1994, Reid 1996, Mudde & DeVries 1999, Secker-Walker et al 1997). Even in this context, effects are likely to be small (Schilling & McAlister 1990). However, advertising alone, however theoretically sound and well designed, is unlikely to impact on behaviour unless used as part of a multi-faceted strategy involving also, for example, legislative or other environmental change (Pentz & Valente 1993, Pierce et al 1990, Maibach & Parrott 1995, Pentz et al 1997). In this context, the Foolsspeed campaign's ability to place speeding on the agenda of Scottish drivers and to stimulate attitude change should be considered a worthwhile achievement.
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