Traffic Crashes Take Their Toll on America's Rural Roads
 

Communications Strategies

Communications strategies work hand in hand with public/private partnerships, strong legislation, and high visibility enforcement. It is a broad category that encompasses all types of activities.

Of special note for rural communities is an observation made by the two project directors of NHTSA’s Pickup Truck Demonstration projects in Florida and South Dakota. They both indicated that a single-message seat belt campaign, based on an increased chance of getting a ticket (enforcement), does not carry the same weight in rural communities as it does in urban and suburban ones. They felt that the more personal relationship between enforcement personnel and community members, and the larger areas that officers must cover, made it important to include other messages to which rural residents respond. The messages they used were based on themes regarding making the right choice, personal responsibility, and serving as a family role model for safe behavior.

Another approach that has been successful in rural communities is the use of seat belt incentive programs. Several years before the enactment of Montana’s seat belt law, 1-year driver incentive programs to increase seat belt use were implemented in 13 communities. Local businesspeople donated prizes and volunteers served as spotters for people who were wearing seat belts. They gave out coupons for hot dogs/hamburgers and an entry blank to participate in drawings for larger prizes. Drawings were held once a month and a final drawing was held at the end of the year. At the drawings, success in increasing seat belt use was reported and sometimes survivors spoke of their crash experiences.

One year after Montana’s seat belt law was enacted, a petition was circulated to rescind it. Petitioners spent approximately $400,000 on a public information campaign to oppose the buckle up requirement. The petition failed. In analyzing the pattern of returns, it was noted that most of the votes to keep the law came from the communities that participated in the driver incentive program.

As noted earlier, rural communities have identified the benefits of working with law enforcement agencies to create and conduct communications strategies. The following case studies illustrate three programs for youth, followed by two special campaigns that combine communications, education, outreach, and enforcement to reach pickup truck drivers.

Programs for Youth

Buckle Up or Eat Glass. This program was designed to teach young people to plan and carry out seat belt campaigns in rural areas. Developed by Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, it focuses on drivers and occupants in pickup trucks and adolescents in grades 7 through 10. The program includes five components: an educational presentation by an expert on rural roadway safety, media promotion, a roadway check of seat belt use in pickup trucks, follow-up recognition of teenagers “caught” wearing their seat belts while riding in pickup trucks, and an evaluation of program success.

The project manual contains instructions and materials so that youth groups can plan and carry out their own programs. The program was pilot tested at 78 rural sites in 18 States where data showed positive changes in attitudes and behaviors in relation to seat belt use. When this document went to press, the program was being implemented in 17 rural areas in Iowa.

High School Seat Belt Policy. Personnel from the New Kent County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office observed a seat belt use rate of about 50 percent among high school students, both drivers and passengers. To encourage seat belt use, they worked with the high school administration and the superintendent of schools to institute a mandatory seat belt policy for teen drivers who had parking privileges on school grounds. The Sheriff’s Office, high school administration, and the superintendent of schools brought the matter before the county school board, and the board voted unanimously to approve the proposed seat belt policy.

The policy requires drivers and passengers to wear seat belts when arriving and departing from the high school grounds. Penalties for not buckling up are:

  • First Offense: The student receives a written or verbal warning that is documented in the student’s discipline file.
  • Second Offense: A letter is sent to the student’s home and a copy is placed in the student’s discipline file.
  • Third Offense: The student loses one week of parking privileges on school grounds.
  • Fourth Offense: The student loses parking privileges for the remainder of the school year.

After the policy was instituted, the seat belt compliance rate at the high school rose to 98 percent.

Special Student Coalitions. Law enforcement officers in Soda Springs, Idaho, knew that seat belt use was not popular among high school students in their community, as evidenced by a 27.5-percent seat belt use rate among this group. However, instead of forming a student coalition from the general high school population, they identified students who were minor violators and repeat offenders from the juvenile justice system. Working with juvenile probation officers they gave student offenders the option to earn community service time by becoming coalition members.

The coalition established a goal to raise the seat belt use rate to 85 percent. It implemented a variety of educational activities, starting with an assembly at which four people told of tragic experiences resulting from seat belt nonuse. In one instance, a woman told how she lost her 3-year-old child as a result of injuries sustained in a crash that occurred the first time the child rode unrestrained. In another, a quadriplegic spoke about cervical spine injuries resulting from a crash. An observational survey taken the next day reported seat belt use at 49 percent, almost double the baseline rate.

Another activity was designed to communicate the fact that someone dies in a motor vehicle crash approximately every 13 minutes. To make this point, coalition members painted a student’s face white every 13 minutes. Once the student’s face was painted the student was not allowed to talk for the remainder of the day. In addition, the local Subway sandwich shop offered to sponsor a “Subway Challenge Party” for the entire school if it raised seat belt use to 85 percent. Although they did not meet the Subway challenge, they did raise the seat belt use rate to 70.6 percent – more than two and one-half times the starting rate.

Programs to Reach Pickup Truck Drivers

Increasing the Seat Belt Usage Rate Among Rural Pickup Truck Drivers. Pickup truck occupants have the lowest seat belt use rates of all passenger vehicle occupants, especially in rural areas. In September 2001, NHTSA awarded two demonstration projects to increase seat belt use among pickup truck occupants in rural communities. One project took place in Santa Rosa County, Florida; the other took place in 12 contiguous counties in South Dakota. These 15-month Cooperative Agreements were designed to measure the effectiveness of communications strategies, ­supported by highly visible enforcement, in achieving this increase.

In spite of the differing characteristics of the two sites, project staff at both sites identified a strong need to address how rural pickup truck occupants relate to the law enforcement community (in addition to other attitudinal and behavioral characteristics). When it came to project implementation, both projects:

  • worked to enhance the image of law enforcement personnel as caring community members who are concerned about the personal safety of community members;
  • used law enforcement personnel as “educators” as well as “enforcers”; and
  • implemented campaigns that “worked towards” enforcement by involving law enforcement personnel in positive reinforcement activities designed to reward seat belt use (rather than starting with a strong enforcement message and citations for nonuse).

In the end, both project recipients acknowledged that participation and buy-in from their respective law enforcement agencies were the overriding factors contributing to increased seat belt use.

A Local Click It or Ticket Program Targeting Rural Pickup Truck Drivers. Twenty-eight percent of registered vehicles in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, located in rural Schuylkill County, are trucks, primarily pickups. Many of the drivers of these trucks are less than 35 years old and, based on State observational data and crash and fatality data are known to have low seat belt use rates. Pottsville and four neighboring small towns took on the challenge of addressing this subgroup of drivers.

The Pottsville police established a task force to plan and implement a Click It or Ticket seat belt education and enforcement program that focused on pickup truck drivers. This was accomplished by using visuals of pickup trucks and pickup truck drivers in the multi-media and educational material the task force created. The task force also sponsored child safety seat checks at pickup truck dealerships.

In addition to paid and public service print and broadcast advertising, the task force delivered its enforcement message using low-cost media and outreach activities. These included road signs, posters in public businesses, presentations to community organizations, pamphlets distributed at local banks, presentations at schools, and live radio broadcasts featuring belted drivers.

Law enforcement agencies conducted seven enforcement waves during seven successive months. Based on observational surveys conducted before the first enforcement wave and after the last one, all jurisdictions showed increases in belt use, ranging from 4 to 39 percentage points. A survey conducted as part of the program’s evaluation showed that the program also was very successful in creating awareness among local residents. Almost everyone surveyed (93%) was aware of the program, and 90 percent of those who did not use a belt before the program said they would wear one after being exposed to the campaign.

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