Part 1: What is my problem?
The compendium begins with sections that help you to find out if you are in the right place. By this we mean that
we think the first thing to consider is whether or not the issue you have is actually ‘mobile phone use by drivers’*.
Whilst we certainly wouldn’t want to put anyone off from engaging with what we have been up to, it is important to
understand the nature of your problem and whether it is, indeed, the most sensible option for commiting time and
energy. We provide some suggestions for how to find that out, using a range of different sources that should be
available to everyone.
Part 2: What will work, and
how will I know if it’s worked?
Assuming that you do, indeed, find
that mobile phone use by (some,
all) drivers is a logical focus for
your efforts and resources, we
then encourage you to think about
evaluation. Whilst this might seem
like an odd consideration (when
you’ve not actually done anything
yet!), it’s never too soon to think
about how you will understand for
yourself, and demonstrate to others,
what you have achieved.
Thinking about evaluating your
intervention is also a very effective
way of working out if what you think
you might like to try is logically
going to achieve the outcomes that
you are looking for.
As road safety
professionals, we can
work together to help
achieve the aim of
creating safer roads.
But to do this we need
to know what others
are doing - especially
others operating on the
same patch as us.
There is no point in
reinventing the wheel
when we can learn
from approaches that
are currently being
used and adapt them
to our own specific
challenges. But to do
this successfully we
need to make sure we
know exactly how our
own context differs
from or is similar to
theirs.
Phone Graphic 2
Part 3: Groups of Interest
Next, we suggest using the data you
have obtained from your information
-gathering exercise to dig a little
deeper and understand if there is a particular group, behaviour, time or place that is particularly worthy of your
attention. We’ve provided a section on several groups of possible interest and some of the approaches that may
work well for them, but we’re not saying that everyone has a particular issue with these groups.
* If it turns out it isn’t, please keep reading! We think this compendium will be useful whatever the problem turns out to
be because most of it is just about ideas and approaches that might work on a range of issues.
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