Texting Enforcement Generic Clearance

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2127-0682)

T ITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Focus Groups for Assessments of Messaging Taglines and Concepts Supporting a National Anti-Texting-While-Driving Enforcement Campaign

PURPOSE:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was authorized by the Highway Safety Act of 1966 to carry out a Congressional mandate to reduce the mounting number of deaths, injuries and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes on our Nation’s highways. In support of this mission, NHTSA is developing a new paid media and earned media communications campaign to be implemented as early as April 2014 in conjunction with high visibility enforcement efforts in states with texting-while-driving laws. (More than 40 have such laws). Data collected by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) report that 3,331 fatalities occurred in 2011 due to distracted driving, in which drivers lost focus on the safe control of their vehicles due to manual, visual and/or cognitive distraction. While objective measures do not exist to determine the number of fatalities associated with texting specifically, observational surveys have shown that more than 100,000 drivers are texting at any given daylight moment. A substantive body of medical research has shown that texting simultaneously involves manual, visual and mental distraction. As such, USDOT has deemed texting to be among the worst of all driver distractions. An integral part of NHTSA’s campaign is development of a tagline and creative concept to accompany television, radio, Internet and print advertisements to support the high visibility law enforcement efforts. The creative approach and tagline will serve to alert the public that drivers who text will be at greater risk of being fined due to the stepped-up enforcement. For assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of tagline and concept alternatives, NHTSA seeks to use a qualitative research methodology in the form of focus groups. For NHTSA campaigns in the past, focus groups have provided an important role in gathering tagline feedback because they allow for a more in-depth understanding of drivers’ attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and feelings than do quantitative studies. Focus groups serve the narrowly defined need for direct and informal opinion on a specific topic.

NHTSA proposes conducting four focus groups among drivers who are ages 18-34 and who self-report likely use of text messaging via their phones while driving. This age group is of particular concern because it accounts for a disproportionate share of distracted driving fatalities. For the focus groups, two groups will be conducted in a state with a primary enforcement law forbidding texting while driving. The other two groups will be conducted in a state with a secondary enforcement law. This research will help refine and sharpen a communications approach that will be most effective in convincing drivers to not text due to increased enforcement. Focus groups will play an important role in gathering this information because they allow for more in-depth understanding of people’s attitudes, beliefs, and motivations than do other kinds of studies. If such information is not collected, it will be more difficult and less cost-effective for NHTSA to develop and distribute potentially life-saving messages to its target audience. 

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Focus group respondents will correspond to the campaign’s target audience, drivers ages 18 to 34 who text regularly and who self-report having sent at least one text message while driving within the past 30 days. Four groups will be conducted, each comprised of seven to nine pre-screened individuals matching this profile. Each group is projected to last 90 minutes in duration (in addition to an “arrive early” window of 15 minutes that will be encouraged). In keeping with conventional focus group recruiting standards, twelve individuals will be recruited for each group in anticipation of seven to nine actually arriving. Should more than nine arrive on time, only nine will be seated in the group, and the others will be released (as well as paid their promised incentives). Of the four groups, two will be conducted in a state with primary enforcement provisions for texting while driving. The other two will be conducted in a state with a secondary enforcement law. Specifically, recommended communities are Schaumburg, Illinois (a primary enforcement state) and Orlando, Florida (a secondary enforcement state).

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other: ____________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:____Susan McMeen____________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ X] Yes [ ] No

Each respondent will be provided with $75 following their participation in a focus group session. This amount is in line with the industry standard, relative to focus group participation by people in the target market. These industry-standard stipends help to ensure that respondents can be recruited efficiently and ensure their arrival and participation in the groups. These standards exist to provide fair compensation for costs incurred by participants while attending groups, based on the location of and expenses in each market. As noted earlier, pre-screened and invited respondents who arrive on time but are released prior to the group will also be awarded their stipends (also in keeping with marketing research industry standards).

BURDEN HOURS

No. of Respondents	No. of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Response (hours)	Total Burden Hours
48 (recruits)	1	10 minutes (1/6-hours) phone interview	8
36 (participants)	1	105 minutes (1-and-3/4-hours) pre-group arrival plus discussion	63
12 (recruits arriving, but released prior to participation)	1	15 minutes (1/4-hours) pre-group arrival	3
			74 hours

TOTAL BURDER HOURS: 74 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $65,000.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Please see recruitment screener attached.

Each focus group facility does the recruiting on our behalf, per the screener we provide.  Its recruiting staff works primarily from a pool within their proprietary database of people in that particular marketplace who have previously submitted demographic, lifestyle and product preference information.  So when we submit a screener such as the one for this project, the recruitment manager will filter the database to search for potential respondents in our age group (and any other relevant specs if the firm happens to have one or more of those other criteria established in the database).  Then the recruiters will use telephone calls to those potential respondents to administer the full screener.

 

If there is more than one person in a household ages 18-34, the recruiter will screen only the first one willing to be screened.  This will prevent multiple respondents from the same household.

 

After going through the database, if the recruiters can't fill our total numbers and/or quotas, the secondary step is procuring sample from any of numerous national sample providers of names, addresses and phone numbers.  The recruiters then make phone calls to this list until the recruiting is completed.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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