Know your audience
Whilst you may have identified that you may want
to target young drivers, you might want to be even
more specific than that and think about specific
age groups, about gender or about localities for
example. Schools and colleges are a good place to
find some - but not all - young people. Some won’t
be in education, some will be older than compulsory
education age, and some might be better reached as
learner drivers than as students more generally.
If you are hoping to interact with young drivers via their
school or college, try to find out as much as you can
about the environment, the context and the curriculum.
Your intervention will only be one of a number of
activities the audience is involved in in a single day. It
might also be the case that the audience has recently
had another form of intervention on the topic, or has
already seen one innovative and groundbreaking
production that day! It’s also worth knowing if the
group are preoccupied with revision, for example,
or if someone in (or known to) the group has recent
experience of a crash. All these contextual factors may
make your message more or less likely to be received.
Designing the best intervention for those who need it
should mean looking at the research evidence about
young drivers (and there is plenty), but it should also
mean talking to the people who know them best 1 .
Consider piloting your intervention with a group of
young people, or showing it to teachers or youth
workers who will be able to give you feedback on your
method, message and approach.
Recent research suggests that interventions aimed
at this group may fail because they lack BCTs (see
p22). The review of projects and their outcomes
found evidence about the effectiveness of goal-
setting; self-monitoring of behaviour; providing
information on consequences; social support;
providing instruction, and providing feedback on
performance 2 . The full review is available via
www.roadsafetyobservatory.com
Assailly, J.P. (2017) ‘Road Safety Education: What works?’ Patient Education and Counselling, S24-S29
Sullman, M. (2017) Young Driver Safety: A review of behaviour change techniques for future interventions RAC Foundation.Available at http://www.
racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/Young_ driver_safety_a_review_of_behaviour_change_techniques_for_future_
interventions _MSullman_March_2017.pdf
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