Improving young drivers’ speed compliance through a single dose of feedback

Abstract

Feedback is an important component in learning, including the development of safe driving for novice drivers. Research shows that feedback can reduce the number of speeding occurrences, and the likelihood of speeding-related incidents and accidents, but it is not clear how often feedback should be provided. The present study builds on a series of laboratory and field studies that showed providing feedback to novice drivers about their speeding performance, financial and safety implications on one occasion after a baseline drive, improved their speed compliance on a subsequent test drive. The benefit was evident six months post intervention. The aim of the current study was to investigate on-road whether this effect could be enhanced by more frequent feedback of the same type. Seventy young drivers (54% male) were randomly allocated to one of five groups in which frequency of feedback was varied: Feedback provided on one, two, three or four occasions each spaced one week apart or no feedback. The effect of frequency of feedback was tested at weekly intervals for 4 weeks (i.e., immediately, then at subsequent sessions that occurred one, two, and three weeks after the first), then six months post-intervention. The results revealed that feedback provided on only one or two occasions was the most effective in reducing young drivers’ average speed and percentage of time speeding for lower (50 km/h) and higher (80 km/h) speed zones. The benefits were not enhanced by multiple feedback occasions. The Control (no feedback) group showed the worst speed compliance, with mean speed and percentage of time speeding increasing from the baseline. These results have important implications for the development of new training approaches to improve young drivers’ speeding behaviour.