Feedback plus financial incentives reduce phone use while driving, researchers discover

To get someone to put down their phone while driving, you have to show them the money – with a catch, according to research published in JAMA network opened. When a group of auto insurance customers were enticed with a cash reward — and regular feedback to let the driver know how they were doing compared to other drivers trying to cut their phone time — cell phone use dropped significantly, a Perelman team said School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found.

During a seven-week trial period, the researchers examined various strategies, based on behavioral science, to combat distracted driving. One strategy combined weekly feedback on phone use with a monetary reward of up to $50 at the end of the study if the drivers used their phones less than others.

This approach resulted in a 15% reduction in mobile phone use compared to drivers who received no incentive or feedback. However, when drivers were told they would receive the same amount in weekly installments but would lose it if they used their mobile phone while driving, phone use fell by 21%.

“In the United States, there are more than 800,000 accidents each year due to distracted driving, with cell phone use while driving being the leading cause. This occurs despite numerous laws banning cell phone use, indicating that additional scalable interventions are needed,” said lead author M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, faculty director of Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit and associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology.

“We were able to use the power of people’s natural aversion to loss and regret, as well as our desire to conform to social norms, to achieve some significant results.”

Insurance companies saw a 30% increase in distracted driving accidents between 2011 and 2020, largely related to cell phone use. Twenty eight states have issued bans on cell phone use while driving, with Pennsylvania becoming the latest state to pass a law that will go into effect in mid-2025.

The practice of encouraging driver behavior is increasing. Car insurers are getting bigger and bigger “Usage-based insurance (UBI)” where customers agree to download smartphone apps to monitor driving performance and cell phone usage. The data is then used to adjust rates for individual drivers, with safer drivers receiving discounts on future insurance policies.

For the study, Penn Medicine researchers teamed up with researchers from Progressive Insurance, which invited customers enrolled in their own UBI program to participate, enrolling more than 2,000 participants in the study.

Using anonymized data, Penn Medicine researchers found that a group of drivers who were told (and notified weekly) that they could lose up to $7.15 per week were the ones who used their phones the least compared to the control group of drivers who receive no incentives or feedback.

Interestingly, doubling the incentive to $14.29 per week did not lead to a greater reduction in phone use, although there was a significant decrease. There were also notable results among drivers who received feedback and were offered the $50 bonus at the end of the test period.

Drivers were offered the $50 delayed reward at the end of the intervention, but received no weekly feedback and no additional loss for weekly performance, yielding no significant results.

The reason why feedback and loss-based payments seemed so crucial is inherently human, according to Delgado.

“People tend to think they are better drivers than others,” he said. “Providing objective data about how they compare to others is a proven way to motivate people toward a social norm. Previous studies have also shown that those who engage in handheld phone use tend to have ‘present bias’ and place greater weight on the payoffs it brings. are closer to the present time.”

Broken down by time, the best-performing intervention – the $7.15 per week group – reduced their phone use by an average of 56 seconds per hour, compared to a baseline of 216 seconds per hour. When you take your eyes off the road for 5 seconds increases the risk of an accident ninefoldOn a large scale, these interventions could reduce distracted driving by millions of hours per year.

This work continues the research Delgado has conducted on distracted driving 2016 (which led to a 2018 paper) and continues with further nudge data analysis. Future research includes testing interventions using smartphone usage data that could help high-risk drivers build sustainable habits.

“This work is promising because insurance companies already spend billions of dollars a year providing incentives for safe driving,” Delgado said. “Rigorous testing of the strategies these companies can use to engage customers in safety can help reduce accidents, save lives and money, and, most importantly, be supported by a strong business case.”