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2A significant part of highway safety program activities is devoted to behavioral countermeasures. These include the entire driver control systemâfrom training and licensing to laws and enforcement and sometimes culminating in fines and sanctions. Given the enormous cost of crashes and the importance of driver behavior in highway loss reduction, it is important that behavioral countermeasures be implemented as effectively as possible. It is a challenge to accomplish this goal. Driver behavior can be changed, although this is not easily accomplished. Some be- havioral countermeasures are effective; others, including some that are popular and widely used, are not effective. There are many complexities in assessing behavioral countermeasures. Some that may not be effective on their own (e.g., certain pub- lic information programs) can be an essential feature when combined with other elements. Some programs that may be described the same way (e.g., public information/education programs encouraging bicycle helmet use) can be widely differ- ent in ways that make one program effective, another not. Moreover, among measures that are effective, there is a wide range in how much they reduce the problem, depending on the effect size (e.g., a 5% versus a 25% reduction in highway deaths), the size of the population to which the measure applies, and the expected duration of the effect. There also can be wide differences in program costs, both monetary and nonmonetary. All of these issues, as well as others, are covered in this re- port. The intention is to develop a roadmap for states, a best practices guide for the use and assessment of behavioral countermeasures. In doing so, all such countermeasures that are used or could be used by states are considered, and infor- mation on the cost and/or effectiveness is indicated when available. Chapter 2 provides background information on counter- measures and Chapter 3 lists behavioral countermeasures by logical groupings in terms of the behavior change approach used. Countermeasures within each group are separated into those that work in terms of reducing the highway safety prob- lem, and those that do not or for which the evidence is un- certain or unknown. In subsequent chapters, the cost benefit parameters for proven effective countermeasures are calcu- lated and analyses of why certain programs work and others do not are presented and draw on behavior change principles derived from the scientific literature. This report aims to provide states with a framework for an evaluation of their current program in terms of countermea- sures in use and those that might be used. The delineation of behavior change principles indicating what works and what does not also provides a means of assessing the likely contri- bution of emerging, experimental, untried, or unproven be- havioral safety measures. C H A P T E R 1 Introduction
