But what should we actually say?
• As with education more generally, rather than
solely focusing upon the legal repercussions of
the use of mobile phones while driving, we could
usefully pay more attention to highlighting the
personal consequences of a crash that can result
from any form of cognitive or physical distraction.
• The page on social norms (p63) explain why you
should consider promoting levels of compliance as
well as (or instead of) levels of offending.
•
As we discuss on p15-17, some drivers may ‘use’ their
phones in ways that they do not consider constitute
‘use’. Cover a range of different types of mobile-
related distraction in your images and text.
•
There’s also little point in creating a sense of the
seriousness of distracted driving amongst the
audience if we don’t try to help people act on that
perception. Empower your audience by giving them
90
strategies for avoiding phone use, not just telling
them not to do it, and enhancing their perception
of control over the problem, as the Theory of
Planned Behaviour suggests is necessary (see page
20 for more on the TPB).
•
Whilst it is useful to inform an audience about police
presence, penalties received, and the dangers of
mobile use generally, awareness does not necessarily
produce attitudinal or behaviour change so may
not have the impact we want on casualty numbers. A
high number of ‘followers’, ‘sharers’ or ‘likers’ does not,
therefore, mean we have really ‘reached’ anyone (see
page 92 for more on evaluation).
There are ideas for social media content
throughout this volume. Many of the ideas from
‘offline’ approaches also translate well into this
context.