Notebook: Week 5 - 2B

1. “Participants decreased their speed in the presence of all cell phone-

related distractions on all roads”
Would decreasing speed while operating a vehicle considered to be safer than
increasing speed while being distracted? While this statement from this study
supports the actions done from distracted drivers, it is missing the danger and
the comparison when it comes to different driving speeds. I believe the mentality
behind these drivers is that if they are going slower than the suggested speed it
is considered to be safer. However the question still resides is it really safer?

2. The highest speed reduction happened on the local road when clothing
(50%), voice command texting (33%), and texting (29%).
This statement supports the actions that require more movement or attention to
make drivers operate vehicles at a slower speed. It is interesting to note that
voice command makes drivers slower at driving compared to just texting. Some
missing statistics I would like to see would involve being on the phone while
driving to see where it would stand compared to others.

3. Safe driving campaigns typically contain upsetting visual images exhibiting

the consequences of risky driving, evoking negative emotions, despite
empirical evidence suggesting the use of emotional images can generate a
defensive response and reduce estimates of personal risk.
This statement supports the ideal that ad campaigns that revolve around
distracted driving uses the emotional fallacy to get the audience's attention. The
emotions would either try to scare the audience or imply some sort of negative
response. The implication that using another type of fallacy can perhaps
persuade an audience in a different manner in which it would be more effective.

4. Campaigns that induce high levels of self-efficacy and can be appraised as

high in perceived-severity and perceived-susceptibility, may increase the
likelihood of long-term behaviour changes
Campaigns should be approached in a different way due to people being numb
to seeing ads that use the same emotional feeling of negativity and scare tactics.
If campaigns were executed effectively in a different way, it would stick to
people's minds more. It should be the goal to have a long-term behavioral
change in order to make a change into the issue of distracted driving.