Philadelphia- A new study suggests that offering money can get people to put down their cell phones while driving, but only under certain conditions. JAMA OpenA research team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that when a group of car insurance customers were given a cash incentive and regular feedback on how their driving compared to other drivers who were also trying to reduce their cell phone use, they saw a significant reduction in cell phone use.
In a seven-week trial, researchers tested a variety of behaviorally based strategies to curb distracted driving. One strategy paired weekly feedback on cell phone use with a cash incentive of up to $50 if drivers used their cell phones less than other drivers at the end of the study. This approach reduced cell phone use by 15 percent compared to drivers who received no incentive or feedback. But when drivers were told they would receive the same amount in weekly installments but would lose the money if they used their cell phone while driving, cell phone use decreased by 21 percent.
“In the United States, there are more than 800,000 distracted driving crashes each year, with texting while driving being the leading cause. These crashes occur despite numerous laws banning texting, suggesting the need for further scalable interventions,” said lead author. M. Kit Delgado, MD, MSc“We were able to harness the power of our natural aversion to loss and regret, as well as our desire to conform to social norms, to achieve important results,” said Dr. Matthews, director of the Nudge Unit at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and associate professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology.
Insurance companies report a 30% increase in distracted driving-related accidents between 2011 and 2020, with cell phone use playing a major role. States passed bans Use of mobile phones while driving Pennsylvania The latest state to enact legislation that will take effect in mid-2025.
There is a growing trend to incentivize driver behavior. Auto insurance companies Usage-Based Insurance (UBI) Customers agree to download a smartphone app to monitor their driving performance and cell phone usage, and the data is used to adjust insurance rates for individual drivers, with safer drivers receiving discounts on future premiums.
For the study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine collaborated with researchers at Progressive Insurance, who invited customers participating in the company’s own UBI program to take part in the study, enrolling more than 2,000 participants.
Using anonymized data, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine determined that the group of drivers who were told they could lose up to $7.15 per week (and were updated weekly) were the group with the lowest cell phone use, compared to a control group of drivers with no incentives or feedback. Interestingly, doubling the incentive to $14.29 per week did not significantly reduce cell phone use, but it did show a significant decrease. Notable results were also seen among drivers who received feedback and were offered a $50 incentive at the end of the test period.
Drivers were offered a delayed $50 incentive at the end of the intervention, but they did not receive weekly feedback and there were no incremental losses from weekly performance, so no significant gains were made.
The reason why feedback and loss-based payments seem so important is down to human nature, Delgado believes.
“People tend to think they are better drivers than others,” he says. “Providing objective data on how they compare to others is a proven way to motivate people to adhere to social norms. And previous research has shown that people who use mobile phones tend to have a ‘present bias,’ placing more weight on rewards closer to the present.”
At a time-by-hour level, the most successful intervention group (the $7.15 per week group) reduced their cell phone usage by an average of 56 seconds per hour, down from a baseline of 216 seconds per hour. Taking their eyes off the road reduced their usage by 5 seconds. 9 times increased risk of collisionImplemented on a large scale, these interventions could reduce millions of hours of distracted driving per year.
The study is a continuation of Delgado’s work on distracted driving back in 2016 (which led to his 2018 paper) and is continuing with further nudge data analysis. Future research will include leveraging smartphone usage data to test interventions that could help high-risk drivers develop lasting habits.
“This work is promising because insurers already spend billions of dollars annually on providing incentives for safe driving behavior,” Delgado says. “Rigorous testing of strategies these companies can use to keep their customers safe could reduce accidents, save lives, save money and, importantly, be sustained through a strong business case.”
This current research was funded by philanthropic grants from the Federal Highway Administration’s Exploratory Advanced Research Program, the National Institutes of Health (K23HD090272001), Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, and the Abramson Family Foundation.
Editor’s note: Several study co-authors not affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine are employed by Progressive or have worked for Cambridge Mobile Telematics, a company under contract to Progressive.
The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and service to the community. The organization is University of Pennsylvania Health System Of pen Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of MedicineIt was founded in 1765 as America’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently ranked among the nation’s top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in fiscal year 2022. Boasting a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn School of Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that are shaping modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T-cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology being used in COVID-19 vaccines.
University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore and include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Medical Center, Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center and Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and operations include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital and Princeton House Behavioral Health.
The Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania is an $11.1 billion enterprise with more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.
