One of the primary goals of the traffic violator school (TVS) program is to improve knowledge and attitudes toward traffic safety issues among drivers cited for traffic violations. While the TVS curriculum is standard for all courses, the courses may differ in content emphasis and other factors. Among the specific characteristics on which TVS programs differ are comedy versus non-comedy presentation modes, public versus private ownership, and use of advertising inducements. The present study examined how these differences may influence the amount of learning and attitude change resulting from TVS attendance. The results indicate that the amount of improvement in knowledge and positive attitude was not significantly related to method of instruction, type of provider, or use of an inducement to attract enrollees. No significant relationship was found between knowledge gain and subsequent accident involvement, or between attitude change and subsequent driver record entries. It was also found that although level of knowledge gain was associated with fewer subsequent traffic citations, the magnitude of the relationship was small. It was recommended that, to the extent that one of the goals of TVS is to increase knowledge of safe driving practices, there may be some value in requiring an exit test as a condition for receiving a TVS-completion certificate. However, there is no evidence at this time to conclude that such an increase in knowledge would result in a reduction in subsequent accident involvements. (Author/publisher)
Abstract