In the group of young male drivers, manoeuvring skills, knowledge of rules, reaction times and perceptual readiness exceed the level of an average driver. In spite of this, their accident risk is about five times higher than that of more experienced drivers. The question is, how to get the young male drivers to make use of the skills they already have. There are usually great difficulties in finding a traffic safety message which would appeal to young men. In the present campaign, no attempts were made to repeat a slogan or to give direct advice. On the contrary, it was supposed, that a realistic picture of one's own traffic behaviour is a message in itself. This led to a procedure of two steps. Firstly, the actual traffic behaviour and attitudes of the target group were recorded. Secondly, this "message" was mirrored back to the target group. The purpose of this was to help the drivers recognise their own weaknesses as well as strengths, and thus influence changes in their traffic behaviour. The target group was composed of all men who were in military service during the experiment. This meant about 30,000 drivers at the age of 18 - 19 years. Several samples of conscripts were used for collecting data for mirroring. Driving speeds were recorded secretly from 173 drivers, the use of seat belts was observed in 785 cases, and 897 conscripts received a questionnaire concerning their traffic behaviour and attitudes. While mirroring the behaviour of conscripts back to the target group, no "right answers" were given. Rather, the mirroring only consisted of real recordings and expressions of the target group, written and spoken in their own language. Special care was taken to make sure, that the whole picture of the target group - and nothing more - was mirrored back to the group. The effects of the campaign were followed up by again recording speeds and the use of scat belts in the same places and under corresponding circumstances. Feedback was also received via a survey a few weeks after the mirroring session. A slight increase in the use of seat belts, and a significant decrease in highest speeds were observed. The opinions given in the survey supported the interpretation, that the mirroring process did have a positive impact on traffic behaviour and on the attitudes of the target group, even though the effects of certain parallel factors, like the intensified discussion around the project cannot be excluded. Accordingly, further research, with a design by control groups, is recommended in order to determine whether the positive findings can be corroborated.
Abstract