A nudge in the right direction: safe traffic behaviour; How can road safety policy benefit from knowledge about automatic behaviour change? Many road safety measures are based on rules, obligations, prohibitions or commandments. Such paternalistic measures are not popular. A frequently heard objection is that such measures are too compelling and that people themselves make better decisions. More recent insights indicate that it is possible to force gently: there are strategies to influence people in such a way that they almost automatically show the desired behaviour. Companies, policy makers and their advisors often carry out or commission research about how automatic behaviour change can be used in policy measures. In many cases, the experiments that are carried out are inspiring and show considerable effects. However, the experiments are rarely published in scientific journals. Therefore, the scientific evidence remains underexposed. This SWOV-report aims to fill this gap and gives an overview of scientific studies into automatic behaviour and the possibilities to influence this behaviour in relation with road safety.
Abstract