Comparative Effectiveness of Financial Incentives and Nudges to Reduce Cellphone Use While Driving Among UBI Auto Policy Holders

Automobile Accident Clinical Trial

Official title:

Comparative Effectiveness of Financial Incentives and Smartphone-based Nudges to Reduce Cellphone Use While Driving Among Auto Insurance Policy Holders With Usage Based Insurance Policies

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03833219
• Other study ID #: 693JJ31750012
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: May 7, 2019
• Est. completion date: August 30, 2020

Study information

• Verified date: September 2020
• Source: University of Pennsylvania
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The investigators are proposing an experiment to help a national auto insurance company test behavioral economic strategies to reduce the amount of time policy holders actively use their cell phone while driving. Interventions include financial incentives, social comparison, and nudges, and survey data will also be collected. Data collected from this internal trial will be shared with the Penn research team and analyzed

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 2108
• Est. completion date: August 30, 2020
• Est. primary completion date: October 30, 2019
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 16 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Progressive Snapshot Users with policy activated within recruitment period

• Progressive Snapshot policy holder in one of the following states and regions: MI, PA, TX, FL, TN, OR, GA, NE, OK, OH, MT, MO, NV, CT, WI, MD, KY, MN, NH, NJ, AZ, ME, LA, SC, CO, MS, IN, IA, AL, ND, UT, RI, WV, WY, IL, AR, DE, KS, SD, NM, VT, ID, and the District of Columbia

• Has an email address

Exclusion Criteria:

• Progressive Snapshot Mobile App not updated to enable push notifications

• Customer's residential address is in a state in which phone use while driving is factored into insurance rating

• Customer's Snapshot Mobile App does not collect trip data with all sensors active

• Customer in Snapshot program for < 30 days or more > 70 days

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Automobile Accident

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Weekly feedback
Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week.
• End of intervention period incentive
Notify participant about potential incentive at the end of the intervention period, but do not provide weekly feedback about performance.
• Loss-framed weekly incentive
Send push notification reporting user's handheld phone use while driving compared to distribution for driver cohort (age, geographic area) each week. Pay participant weekly according to where they fall on the distribution each week.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University of Pennsylvania	U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (10)

Delgado MK, Wanner KJ, McDonald C. Adolescent Cellphone Use While Driving: An Overview of the Literature and Promising Future Directions for Prevention. Media Commun. 2016 Jun 16;4(3):79-89. — View Citation

French B, Small DS, Novak J, Saulsgiver KA, Harhay MO, Asch DA, Volpp KG, Halpern SD. Preference-adaptive randomization in comparative effectiveness studies. Trials. 2015 Mar 18;16:99. doi: 10.1186/s13063-015-0592-6. — View Citation

Halpern SD, French B, Small DS, Saulsgiver K, Harhay MO, Audrain-McGovern J, Loewenstein G, Brennan TA, Asch DA, Volpp KG. Randomized trial of four financial-incentive programs for smoking cessation. N Engl J Med. 2015 May 28;372(22):2108-17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1414293. Epub 2015 May 13. — View Citation

Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Asch DA. Harnessing the power of default options to improve health care. N Engl J Med. 2007 Sep 27;357(13):1340-4. — View Citation

Hayashi Y, Russo CT, Wirth O. Texting while driving as impulsive choice: A behavioral economic analysis. Accid Anal Prev. 2015 Oct;83:182-9. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2015.07.025. Epub 2015 Aug 13. — View Citation

Klauer SG, Guo F, Simons-Morton BG, Ouimet MC, Lee SE, Dingus TA. Distracted driving and risk of road crashes among novice and experienced drivers. N Engl J Med. 2014 Jan 2;370(1):54-9. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa1204142. — View Citation

Lahrmann H, Agerholm N, Tradisauskas N, Berthelsen KK, Harms L. Pay as You Speed, ISA with incentive for not speeding: results and interpretation of speed data. Accid Anal Prev. 2012 Sep;48:17-28. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2011.03.015. Epub 2011 Apr 9. — View Citation

Loewenstein G, Brennan T, Volpp KG. Asymmetric paternalism to improve health behaviors. JAMA. 2007 Nov 28;298(20):2415-7. — View Citation

Patel MS, Asch DA, Rosin R, Small DS, Bellamy SL, Eberbach K, Walters KJ, Haff N, Lee SM, Wesby L, Hoffer K, Shuttleworth D, Taylor DH, Hilbert V, Zhu J, Yang L, Wang X, Volpp KG. Individual Versus Team-Based Financial Incentives to Increase Physical Activity: A Randomized, Controlled Trial. J Gen Intern Med. 2016 Jul;31(7):746-54. doi: 10.1007/s11606-016-3627-0. Epub 2016 Mar 14. — View Citation

Reagan IJ, Bliss JP, Van Houten R, Hilton BW. The effects of external motivation and real-time automated feedback on speeding behavior in a naturalistic setting. Hum Factors. 2013 Feb;55(1):218-30. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Seconds of active phone use per hour of driving	Percentage of driving time engaging in active handheld phone use (also measured as seconds of distracted driving/hour of driving)	150 days
Secondary	Seconds of passive phone use per hour of driving	Seconds of passive handheld, non-call use per hour of driving	150 days
Secondary	Hard breaking events per 100 miles	notifications turned off, drop out of study, app uninstall	150 days
Secondary	Hard acceleration events per 100 miles	Hard acceleration events per 100 miles	150 days

External Links

•   Richtel, M. Phone Makers Could Cut Off Drivers. So Why Don't They? New York Times. September 2016.
•   State Farm. (2014). Distracted Driving