Buckle Up In Your Truck

BUCKLE UP IN YOUR TRUCK (BUIYT)

The “Click It or Ticket” program, introduced in the state of Alabama in 2001 as a Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), has proven to be very successful since its inception. Each year has shown improvement in the safety belt use in the state.

As a part of the Click It or Ticket studies conducted by CAPS, analyses on drivers of different types of vehicles were performed. The most significant finding of this part of the study was that drivers and occupants of pickup trucks were less likely to use their safety belt in pickup trucks than in any other type of vehicle. Combined with other national data, this led to the introduction of the “Buckle Up in Your Truck” (BUIYT) campaign in Alabama in 2005.

Early evaluations found this new program to be effective, and it was repeated in 2006 and 2007. The BUIYT campaign was primarily aimed at increasing public awareness of the problem, thereby increasing safety belt usage among those driving and riding in pick up trucks.

National data have shown that pickup truck drivers and their passengers, particular those in the rural areas, are the least likely group to buckle up. This has proven to be true on both the State and the National levels. This seems to be a particular problem in southeastern section of the United States. According to NHTSA, there were about 1,782 fatalities from pickup truck crashes in the southeast region per year in the 2003-2005 time frame. Of these fatalities, 74% were not buckled up.

Based on information such as this, eight states in the Southeast launched the “Buckle Up in Your Truck” (BUIYT) campaign in 2005, including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. This campaign was proven successful and was repeated as part of the 2006 and 2007 CIOT campaigns.

The BUIYT programs were conducted in conjunction with the Click It or Ticket campaigns, the latest of which ran between April 17 and June 14, 2007. The agencies and organization from across the state that were involved with the BUIYT program were the same as those involved with CIOT. The types of activities and the timeline associated with the BUIYT campaign are as follows:

Weeks 1-3 Statewide Observational Survey (Baseline)
Week 3 Paid Truck Media
Week 4 Intensive Selective Enforcement
Weeks 3-8 Earned Truck Media
Weeks 7-8 Statewide Observational Post Survey
Weeks 7-8 Statewide Telephone Post Survey

The public education conducted for the BUIYT program followed closely with the plans developed by NHTSA. These plans included three primary types of public information: public relations, earned media, and paid advertising. Both radio and TV advertising were used. These earned and paid efforts were targeted at key at-risk groups and were aired in priority markets. Groups targeted included 18 to 34 year old males who drive pickups, and their passengers. These spots were aired in priority markets in order to target key groups of individuals. These ads were in addition to and ran prior to the start of the regular Click It or Ticket ads.

While the operational parts of the programs were managed by the ADECA Law Enforcement and Traffic Safety Section (LETS), CAPS had the responsibility to coordinate and document the evaluation effort. These were conducted in two parts:

Statewide Observation Surveys. These were performed in partnership with the Injury Prevention Division of the Alabama Department of Public Health (ADPH), who coordinated statewide surveys of vehicle safety belt usage. Two surveys were conducted between April and June -- the first at the start of the program to establish a baseline usage rate, and the second was conducted following the completion of the BUIYT program to measure the overall effectiveness of the program. These surveys included results from 15 counties throughout the state. A total of 29,846 pick-up truck motorists were observed over the course of these two surveys in order to determine and record their safety belt usage.
Statewide Telephone Survey. A consultant specializing in telephone surveys was engaged to perform these surveys after each of the BUIYT campaigns was completed. Additional questions specific to safety belt use among those in pickup trucks were added to the standard phone survey used for CIOT. A total of 500 persons were interviewed in Alabama via telephone after the completion of the program. Of these, 77 stated that their primary vehicle was a pickup truck.

Summary of Statewide Observational Survey Results

Field observation surveys were performed each year to measure shoulder safety belt use rates by drivers and front seat outboard passengers in pickup trucks. The observation surveys were performed in 15 representative Alabama counties, including the four counties with the largest metropolitan areas (Jefferson, Madison, Mobile, Montgomery), plus 11 additional counties selected at random from a pool of 37 large counties. Consequently, more than 85% of the state’s population was represented by the study sample.

A full study (i.e., data collection) was conducted prior to BUIYT each year to estimate the “baseline” seatbelt usage rate. The full study was repeated after the BUIYT campaign to estimate the “post” seatbelt usage rate. The same design, sites, and observation methods were used in both the before and the after studies.

The ADPH survey team observed a total of about 14,500 front seat pickup occupants per year in 23 randomly selected sites in the 15 selected counties during the pre-BUIYT period. About 15,000 were observed during the post- BUIYT periods. ADPH established the Alabama pickup truck safety belt use rates each year for the baseline and the post-treatment period. The estimated usage rates for both before and after statewide observations in the three years are given in the table below.

Pickup Truck Observation Surveys of Belt Use 2005-2007

YEAR	PRE BUIYT	POST BUIYT
2005	68.60%	72.92%
2006	71.06%	77.30%
2007	75.94%	77.10%

The chart below is quite interesting in that it shows how each year there was a slight regression between the programs, and also that there was a diminishing return due to the programs.

Baseline and Post Percentage Pickup Truck Safety

Belt Use Rates for 2005 Through 2007

The following conclusions were drawn from the analyses of the survey data gathered in the BUIYT campaigns:

The BUIYT campaign had a noticeable effect on the use of safety belts among pickup truck occupants bringing the percentage of use from 68.60% at the beginning of the campaigns to 77.10% at the end of the three campaigns.
The safety belt usage rate among pickup truck occupants remained below the usage rate among “all” drivers observed and reported in the “Click It or Ticket” report. The rate for pickup truck occupants was approximately 4.94% below the rate seen for “all” drivers during the pre-survey, and it was 5.19% lower during the post-survey.
The 2007 post-campaign result was not significantly (0.2%) lower than the 2006 post-campaign result, while the 2007 pre-campaign result was 4.88% higher than the 2006 pre-campaign result. Additionally, there was an increased retention between the pre-campaign rates of 2005 and 2006. This 4.88% increase between 2006 and 2007 and the increase of 2.46% between 2005 and 2006 indicate a higher retention rate from one year to the next.
While there was a favorable increase in pickup truck safety belt use over the program period, the use of safety belts among those in pickup trucks is still the lowest of any type of vehicle.

Study in future years will determine the lasting effect of the BUIYT programs. The data for 2007 indicated that there was at least a short term positive effect on the safety belt usage among pickup truck drivers. However, experience with the CIOT program over a number of years tells us that continued repetition of restraint use programs is essential to maintaining a continued high rate of use, and there is no reason that we should expect safety belt practice among pickup truck occupants to be any different.

Summary of Statewide Telephone Survey Results

In conjunction with the interviews conducted for the Click It or Ticket program, additional questions were added to assess the effectiveness of the “Buckle Up in Your Truck” campaign and to gather more information on safety belt usage among those driving or riding in pickup trucks.

The sample was a statewide cross section of telephone households in Alabama, and telephone numbers were randomly generated by computer to avoid any adverse stratification. There were 6906 total numbers dialed in order to obtain 500 valid responses (i.e., individuals willing to complete the entire interview). The surveyors asked 41 questions to bring out respondents’ attitudes about the safety belt law, safety belt wearing habits, and personality traits.

It is important to note that telephone surveys gather self-reported information. Typically, belt use is overstated. Thus the phone survey use rates would not be as accurate as field observations. All of the telephone surveys were administered during the post-program period. Among the group of 500 surveyed individuals, 77 in the study identified a pickup truck as the vehicle they drove most often. This is a relatively small sample size and this should be taken into consideration when evaluating the following conclusions drawn from the self-reported data:

A high percentage of those interviewees who said that they primarily drive pickup trucks self-reported “all the time” use of their seatbelts. About 90% of the “pickup truck” respondents answered “yes” to this question. This is more than the rates for all drivers, where 88% answered “yes” to this question.
About 94% of pickup truck occupants self-reported the use of seatbelts “all the time” or “most of the time.” This is not significantly different from the rates seen for car drivers.
Some percentage of the interviewees reported that they were less likely to wear their safety belts when in a pickup truck as compared to other vehicles they might be riding in.

The results seen in this survey indicate that the self-reported belt usage rate among pickup truck occupants is consistent with the self-reported rate for all drivers. However, self-reported rates are less reliable than observed rates. Additionally, there are some individuals who would typically buckle up in a car who will not when they are in a pickup truck, perhaps because the larger vehicle makes them feel safer. On a positive note, the comparison of the 2005 through 2007 post surveys indicates that the BUIYT was acknowledged by the public, and it is clear that a positive effect over the three year period was observed.

Click here to view the video He Never Got the Message

Click here to view the entire 2007 "Buckle Up in Your Truck" project report

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