• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Risk Homeostasis / Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages

Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages

June 28, 2023 by Admin 1 Comment

Originally posted on May 5, 2022 @ 3:14 PM

Interesting share from Brent Charlton. First Published Here: Science Alert

Study Reveals an Unexpected Side Effect of Traffic Safety Messages

CARLY CASSELLA – 24 APRIL 2022

Attention-grabbing signs that remind drivers of highway mortality can backfire in unexpected ways, according to a new study.

When cars in Texas zoom past crash statistics – like ‘1669 deaths this year on Texas roads’ – researchers found drivers are 4.5 percent more likely to get in a crash in the next 10 kilometres (6.21 miles).

In Texas alone, that accident rate could account for 2,600 crashes a year and an additional 16 fatalities. If the same rate exists nationwide, it’s possible road fatality reminders could be causing 17,000 car crashes in the US every year.

“Our study shows that salient, generic, in-your-face safety messages delivered to drivers crowd out more pressing safety concerns,” the authors conclude.

While traffic signs about road safety might seem helpful or innocuous, there’s a chance they are distracting drivers in a way that is more of a disaster than a deterrent.

That’s a serious issue, given that 28 states have adopted similar interventions.

Texas makes for a good case study because the state flashes fatality messages on the highway once a week each month. This allowed researchers to measure the impact of these messages on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.

image

(Jonathan Hall)

Comparing car crashes from before the state’s safety campaign started and after, researchers were surprised to find an immediate negative impact. It seemed the campaign was doing the exact opposite of what it was intended to do.

When fatality signs went up in campaign weeks, car crashes also went up. The result is comparable to raising the speed limit by 3 to 5 miles per hour (4.8 to 8 km/h) or reducing highway troopers by up to 14 percent.

Although initially surprised, the authors of the study have found a way to explain the results.

They propose that “sobering” messages like road fatalities are too “in-your-face”. Instead of making a driver more alert, they simply make them more distracted.

By stealing some of a driver’s limited attention and turning it into anxiety about death, road signs can cause drivers to overlook other essential considerations, like knowing where other cars are around them.

The ‘distraction’ hypothesis is also supported by the fact that an increase in car crashes from fatality signs was larger on Texas roads that were more complex, such as those with more traffic or more lanes and turn-offs.

Anxiety is also another key explanation. In the Texas study, as the actual number of car crash deaths flashed on a road increased, so, too, did the chances of a car crash happening in the following 10 kilometres.

This suggests that the more shocking the sign, the more likely someone will pay more attention to the risk than the road. When the annual fatality numbers restart in February, for instance, the rate of car crashes after the sign can drop by up to 11 percent from the previous month, effectively reducing crashes by a few percent.

Past psychological research has also shown that high anxiety levels can impact our performance on a task, driving us to overthink, which can override our reflexes. Yet, for some reason, that downside was a forgotten consideration when first adopting road safety campaigns.

While previous studies in the lab have shown that fatality messages can mess with a driver’s cognitive load, research in the real world is limited. That said, vehicle simulators do indicate billboards, in general, are distracting to drivers.

“[I]t is important to measure an intervention’s effect, even for simple interventions, because good intentions do not necessarily imply good outcomes,” the authors of the Texas study warn.

Responding to the new findings in a related perspective, traffic control expert Gerald Ullman and psychologist Susan Chrysler note that the US Federal Highway Administration began discouraging the use of fatality numbers on the road in 2021.

The findings found in Texas support that decision.

“The crash data presented… clearly demonstrate a safety effect of showing fatality numbers on [dynamic message signs],” Ullman and Chrysler write.

“However, the mechanism for this safety effect is not clearly elucidated by the data presented in the paper. Additional analyses regarding crash types and documented causal factors in the crash reports might yield more insights.”

The research is a good reminder that just because a public health policy seems helpful, it still needs to be taken for a test run.

The study was published in Science.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Risk Homeostasis, Road Safety Tagged With: safety messages, traffic safety

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rob Long says

    May 6, 2022 at 8:31 AM

    None of these results should be surprising to anyone studied in Social Psychology. It is naive in the extreme to think that any strategy is neutral, objective and doesn’t have by-products and trade-offs. Most often naive strategies get the opposite of what they desire. This is so common in behaviourist had in the sand safety that thinks of binary inputs and outputs. The rebrands behaviourism as something else and bamboozles people with fads, gimmicks and slogans. When you language is zero and your definition of safety is injuries, you clearly have no idea of what to do.
    The stuff reported above is 101 in Social Psychology, perhaps start here:
    https://personal.us.es/einfante/uploads/DOCENCIA/PSYCH301-1.1.1-Social-psychology-reading.pdf
    https://2012books.lardbucket.org/pdfs/social-psychology-principles.pdf
    https://us.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-assets/90582_book_item_90582.pdf
    https://diasmumpuni.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/david_g-_myers_social_psychology_10th_editionbookfi.pdf

    Social Psychology is not some add on to safety, it should be th foundation of safety. There is nothing more foundational than the fact that we are social beings and that everything in our social life and relationships affects us, mostly unconsciously. There you go, but none of this even makes any conversation in traditional safety or so called ‘safety differently’.
    It is so clear. Social arrangements can make you angry, afraid, fearful, silent, confused and do so collectively. In-groupness and out-groupness is so easy to create if you know you are doing. Then again, one would need to take seriously the idea of a Collective Unconscious, certainly propagandists do and marketting does, just not safety.
    Then we see all these naive rituals created by safety that don’t work that create pessimism, cynicism and scepticism in organisations and groups then wonder why a behaviourist strategy makes culture change worse. Great for making money, offering naive promises and charging a fortune to tell stories and market guilt as a strategy to tackle a wicked problem.
    I find it so amusing that when Safety has a spike in injuries and fatality it goes to more of the same, call in th engineers and the marketers selling more goop to people who want to believe it. Thn wonder why the only thing that changes is their bank balance.
    The only thing that Safety knows for sure is that SPoR offers nothing to help. Except all those organisations who practice and use SPoR tools, know it works. Such is the fear of an industry that brags about being professional and makes miseducation compulsory. I know lets have some reform in safety and call in an engineer.

    Reply

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them belowCancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,508 other subscribers.

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • rosa a carrillo on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Matt Thorne on Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Rob Long on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Rosa Carrillo on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Brent Charlton on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Anonymous on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Rob Long on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Rob Long on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Rob long on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Anonymous on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Joseph D Zinobile on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Jason Martell on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?

If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health

Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk

7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden

Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health

If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking

Effective Strategies in Mental Health at Work

CLLR Newsletter July 2023

Playing With Mental Health in Safety is Dangerous

STOP ‘BREAKING’ PEOPLE! The notion of Psychological Safety

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Footer

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Free Risk Assessment Template in Excel Format
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health
  • Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk
  • Embodied Enactivity in Safety
  • The Meaning of Myth in Risk
  • Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • The Power of Safety Myths
  • What Do You Mean By Performance?
  • Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Podcast – Dr Rob Long With John Morlan and The Risk Matrix
  • What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Free Videos, Podcasts and Books on Zero
  • Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • If You’re Happy in Safety, Clap Your Hands
  • Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Zero Hour Part 5 – Surfacing the Unconscious
  • Zero Hour Part 4 – Zero and the Unconscious
  • Auditing the 7 Golden Rules of Zero, A Miserable Fail
  • 7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden
  • The Non-Golden Rules for Leadership in Zero
  • Seven ‘Golden’ Rules for Zero and Yet No Ethic
  • Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health
  • Is this Your Safety?
  • SPoR Workshops Canberra 18-21 September
  • The Dominance of Zero as the ‘Common Denominator’ of Safety
  • Zero Hour Episode 3
  • Goal Setting and Zero
  • Zero as a Worldview
  • If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking
  • Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Breach of Faith and Psycho-Social Risk
  • Zero Harm is Never Zero Harm
  • Why Would You Want to be a Safety “Geek’ or Hero?
  • The Mental Illness of Identifying as Safety
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a place holder
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a Philosophy
  • CARING ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
  • Care is NOT a Factor and Yes, Your Model Matters
  • Care Ethics and the Ethics of Care, in Risk
  • FEAR AND CONTROL – Dialogue in a technological society
  • Of Course, Method Matters in Safety
  • Day 12 SPoR in Europe
  • Free Study Module Following-Leading in Risk August-September

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

New Video Explains Cognitive Dissonance and Safety

Risk and Safety Rituals

Building resilience trumps the prevention of harm

Mental Health, Risk and Safety – Part 2

Non-Binary Decision Making in Risk

The Safetyization of Normal Life

Safetie

Tackling the Reality of Harm

Looking Forward, Looking Back

Like a Collective Brain Snap

OnLine Learning Modules with CLLR

Who is Responsible?

The Moment of Decision in Safety

Four Indicators of Toxic Safety Culture

None so Blind as Those That Don’t Want to See – Due Diligence

Symbols Have Power

Post Graduate Safety Potato Heads

The ‘Noise’ of Safety, Silence and Practicing of Mindfulness

Out of your (Unconscious) Mind

Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?

Free Poster–What is Safety

Risk and Safety Matrices and the Psychology of Colour

Social Psychology of Risk – Body of Knowledge

New Social Psychology of Risk Website

So, You Want Culture Change

History and Hindsight in Safety

Selective Harm for Rio Tinto

Why is fallibility so challenging in the workplace?

How Workers Really Make Decisions

Safety and Risk Leadership Master Class

A Picture Tells a Thousand Lies in Safety

Accidents Happen Because You Don’t Put Safety First

Biases and Perceptions in Safety

Auditing the 7 Golden Rules of Zero, A Miserable Fail

Thinking About Harm

The Stanford Experiment and The Social Psychology of Risk

What Can ‘Safety’ Learn From a Rock?

Shopping for Safety

Safety is not Just a Choice

Themes and Concepts in Risk – Requests

More Posts from this Category

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,508 other subscribers.

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY