Changing community perceptions about speeding is an important priority. The need for improved compliance with speed limits was identified in Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy 2011-2020 (NRSS), as was the need to engage more effectively with the community on the role of speed in road safety. Similarly, New Zealand’s national strategy, Safer Journeys, recognises the need to implement a communications strategy that will alter community dialogue on speeding, including increasing understanding and acceptance of safer speeds by road system designers and users. In recognition of these needs, Austroads commissioned research (Project No. SS1962) to identify a range of potential interventions for trial and evaluation aimed at creating, increasing, and/or sustaining demand for safer speeds. The research was conducted by the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland (CARRS-Q). Trial and evaluation of interventions arising from the research may occur in future Austroads projects. This project comprised three phrases: 1. A literature review to identify evidence-based options for interventions with potential to create, increase, and/or sustain demand for safer speeds in the community and to consider the feasibility, costs and benefits of identified interventions; 2. Consultations with key stakeholders regarding intervention options, including the feasibility and likely costs of identified interventions; and 3. Preparation of a report describing the research results, including recommendations for future phases of the program of work. The review contains the areas: 1) Overview of speeding as it relates to road safety (Section 2); 2) Creating demand for behavioural and social change — lessons from previous successes including case studies of smoking, drink driving and seat belt use (Section 3); 3) Interventions previously used for creating, increasing and/or sustaining demand for safer speeds (Section 4); 4) Considerations for potential countermeasures (Section 5). The review led to the development of a proposed Campaign Strategy targeting nine aims (Table 6.2) across the three themes underpinning this research: 1) creating, 2) increasing, and 3) sustaining public demand for safer speeds on the road. The aims are: Create demand for safer speeds 1. To enhance community understanding of risk associated with speeding. 2. To enhance community understanding that increased speeds result in increased crash severity, based on uncontested laws of physics. 3. To increase awareness of purpose and benefits of speed enforcement. Increase demand for safer speeds 4. To challenge the prevailing descriptive norm that ‘everyone speeds’. 5. To challenge the injunctive/moral norm that speeding is acceptable and approved of by others (i.e., that speeding is no big deal). 6. To challenge the perception that speeding saves a large amount of time, and/or that it is possible to make up a large amount of lost time by speeding. Sustain demand for safer speeds 7. To challenge the perception that complying with speed limits is hard/impossible and to promote individual responsibility for and ability to choose and control one’s speed. 8. To continue to build a positive culture surrounding road safety more broadly, and speeding more specifically. 9. To challenge language associated with speeding in order to alter public perception of its importance. A small international expert advisory group (n = 3) reviewed the draft literature review and draft Campaign Strategy and provided written feedback that was incorporated into the draft documents before they were used for stakeholder consultations. Twenty-one stakeholders provided comment, via an online survey, on the suitability and feasibility of, and likely barriers to, the countermeasures within the draft Campaign Strategy and its applicability to the Australian/New Zealand context. Stakeholders consisted of road user advocacy groups, jurisdictional transport authorities, and researchers in the road safety and advertising/ behaviour change fields. Eight themes were identified from stakeholder feedback: (i) support for the Campaign Strategy, (ii) suggestions to broaden the Campaign Strategy, (iii) Campaign Strategy (or parts) lacking support, (iv) political will being crucial to success of the Campaign Strategy, (v) feasibility of the Campaign Strategy, (vi) barriers to the Campaign Strategy, (vii) other considerations, and (viii) additional ideas. There was overwhelmingly positive support for the proposed Campaign Strategy by the majority of respondents, noting that is addressed key misperceptions and was complementary to many existing approaches. A small number of respondents expressed some concerns; one respondent thought that the Campaign Strategy was too theoretical and two respondents thought that the Campaign Strategy could backfire if implemented poorly. Success of the Campaign Strategy was noted by many as dependent on long term political support and sustained resourcing. A number of barriers were identified including that drivers may be unaware of the ‘true’ picture of how much speeding is occurring and that enforcement of low level speeding may be viewed solely as revenue raising by some. The need for ongoing evaluation of the Campaign Strategy and for it to complement what is already in place, rather than replace it, was highlighted. Additional ideas to increase the effectiveness of the Campaign Strategy included: increasing education of the negative effects of speeding, increasing initiatives which incentivise good driving behaviour, and implementing strategies to assist local community action which address speeding. Stakeholder feedback was incorporated to produce the final version of the proposed Campaign Strategy that appears in Table 6.2. There is great diversity across New Zealand and Australian jurisdictions in regard to many issues associated with trailing and evaluating the components of the proposed Campaign Strategy. There is need for individual jurisdictions to consider a range of costs and benefits associated with the proposed Campaign Strategy and its individual parts in order to determine the likely feasibility from their unique perspective. Table 6.1 provides information that will assist in considering such issues when deciding which potential interventions to trial in individual jurisdictions. The ideas contained within the proposed Campaign Strategy (Table 6.2) provide a systematic framework to address key barriers to public demand for safer speeds. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting