Promoting Intrafamily Accountability for Reducing Cellphone Use While Driving in Adults and Their Teen Children

Promoting Intrafamily Accountability for Reducing Cellphone Use While Driving in Adults and Their Teen Children

Research participants and their parents will be recruited to take part in a randomized control trial. Participants' and their parents' cellphone use will be observed during an initial baseline period. Participants and their parents will then be randomly assigned to one of two conditions: opt-out blocking with parental notification, opt-out blocking with bidirectional notification.

In 2012, 3,328 people were killed and an additional 421,000 were injured in crashes involving a distracted driver. Adults aged greater than 40 years old accounted for 44% of these fatalities. Teen driving behavior is heavily influenced by parental driving behaviors with a recent study showing the proportion of teens that text while driving is 14% higher if they have observed their parents doing the same. The proportion of adults who text while driving has recently surpassed teen rates with a 2013 national poll finding 49% of adult car commuters admit to texting while driving, most stating that they did it out of habit. Based on previous findings, it is unlikely that teens will reduce their texting while driving unless their parents do the same.

The objective of this study is to compare measures of acceptance and feasibility across teen-parent dyads randomized to bidirectional teen-parent (teen monitors parent and parent monitors teen) vs. teen only (parent monitors teen) cellphone use while driving.

Research participants will be recruited to take part in a randomized control trial. Participants' cellphone use will be observed during an initial baseline period. Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two conditions (bidirectional teen-parent monitoring or parental monitoring of the teen only). An exit survey and interview will be administered to both the parent and teen separately at the end of the study.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Both parent and teen will be enrolled together as a pair

• Teen:

  • Is a high school student (age 16 or 17 at start of the study)
  • Holds a valid driver's license
  • Lives in parent/guardian's home
  • Primarily drives one car
  • Drives an average of 4 or more trips per week
  • Has their own iPhone 4S or newer or Android 4.3 or newer smartphone with data plan
  • Admits to texting while driving at least once in the last month

• Parent:

  • Is the parent of a teen driver
  • Drives an average of 4 or more trips per week
  • Primarily drives one car
  • Has their own iPhone 4S or newer or Android 4.3 or newer smartphone with data plan
  • Admits to texting while driving at least once in the last month

Exclusion Criteria:

• Parent and/or teen already uses a smartphone app or hardware device to limit cellphone use while driving