Motivating drivers to correctly adjust head restraints: assessing effectiveness of three different interventions

Abstract

Three types of driver educational strategies were tested to determine the most effective approach for motivating drivers to adjust their head restraints to the correct vertical position: (1) a human interactive personal contact with a member of an ICBC-trained head restraint adjustment team, (2) a passive video presentation of the consequences of correct and incorrect head restraint adjustment, and (3) an interactive three-dimensional kinetic model showing the consequences of correct and incorrect head restraint adjustment. An experimental pretest-posttest control group design was used. A different educational treatment was used in each of three lanes of a vehicle emissions testing facility, with a fourth lane with no intervention serving as a control group. Observational and self-reported data were obtained from a total of 1,974 vehicles entering and exiting the facility. The human intervention led to significantly more drivers actually adjusting their head restraints immediately after the intervention than the passive video or interactive kinetic model approaches, which were both no different from the control group. The human intervention was recommended as the most effective and was implemented successfully on a limited basis during 3 months of 1995 and again during 3 months of 1996.