NHTSA Generic Clearance Submission

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

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Effective Recall Communications for Office of Defects Investigation Recall Campaign Promotion.

PURPOSE:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is responsible for keeping people safe on America’s roadways and its mission is to save lives, prevent injuries and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards and enforcement activity.

Greater public awareness and engagement are vital to create additional inputs to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that will help regulators identify early warning signs for safety defects. Increased public awareness and engagement also will improve timely notification of recalls and consumer recall compliance. In support of this, NHTSA is refreshing its Safe Cars Saves Lives consumer information campaign with the goal to promote greater awareness of the agency’s role in vehicle safety investigations and recalls, and motivate consumers to engage with NHTSA’s online recall resources that will ultimately save more lives on America’s roadways.

NHTSA is seeking approval of an information collection to better understand consumer attitudes toward recalls and what motivates their behavior (or lack thereof). The research will offer insights to communicate more effectively with consumers based on insights gathered from an in-depth qualitative exploration of the range of potential challenges, concerns, benefits and motivations that shape consumer behavior.

Knowledge gained from this research will help shape communication strategy through identification of credible third parties and recommendations on how to increase effectiveness of message content and improve visuals to make notifications command greater attention.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The respondents for this study will include three audiences. The first audience will be comprised of national, general public vehicle owners ages 18+. A second audience will consist of a target audience of Hispanic vehicle owners ages 18+ who speak Spanish in their home. A third audience will consist of a target audience of owners of vehicles impacted by the Takata air bag recall ages 18+. The research design splits the three audiences into five online discussion boards.

Board 1	National general public vehicle owners ages 18+	Recruit 35
Board 2	National general public vehicle owners ages 18+	Recruit 35
Board 3	Hispanic vehicle owners ages 18+ who speak Spanish in their home	Recruit 35
Board 4	Owners of vehicles impacted by the Takata air bag recall ages 18+	Recruit 35
Board 5	Owners of vehicles impacted by the Takata air bag recall ages 18+	Recruit 35
	TOTAL RECRUITED	Recruit 175

Each board will recruit 35 participants for a total of 175 recruited participants. Screening criteria will require that all respondents have a valid driver’s license, own a vehicle and operate a vehicle at least once per week. The boards will field in two waves, each wave lasting three days. The first wave will include Board 1 (general public) and Board 4 (owners of vehicles impacted by Takata air bag recall). The second wave will include an additional set boards for general public and owners of vehicles impacted by Takata air bag recall, along with a dedicated board of Hispanic vehicle owners ages 18+ who speak Spanish in their home. This additional group is added to help boost Hispanic participants from the general public boards so they can be looked at as a stand-alone audience and also gather insights among potential language barriers that might exist among bilingual Hispanics.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

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

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

[ ] Focus Group [X] Other: Online Bulletin Board

An online bulletin board is similar to traditional focus groups in that it allows for a group of people to come together to have a moderated discussion about a topic. There are several advantages of conducting an online bulletin board versus in person focus groups. One key advantage of online bulletin boards is that they allow participants to be drawn from a nationwide audience. A second key advantage focuses on lower respondent time commitment and burden. Online bulletin boards require a time commitment of 15-20 minutes per day over the course of three days for a total of 45-60 minutes. By comparison, traditional focus groups require 90-120 minutes, plus travel time to and from a focus group facility for a total of up to three hours’ time per participant. While online bulletin board participants are required to log in to the bulletin board multiple times a day to react to other participant’s comments, the overall time commitment is substantially less for online bulletin boards when compared to traditional focus groups.

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? [X] Yes [ ] No

The third-party vendor collects information from the research participants in order to provide them with the incentive. No PII is reported to NHTSA. No responses will be connected to individual respondents; only aggregate data will be reported.

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

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

Gifts or Payments:

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

It is standard practice to provide a basic incentive in order to avoid bias of receiving responses only from individuals generally predisposed to be helpful. Participants in this research will not be offered incentives provided directly by NHTSA. The third-party vendor will fulfill incentives at the standard rate of $75 for each participant.

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Pre-screen completes	2000	3.0 minutes	100 hours
Validation screener	200	1.5 minutes	5 hours
General population group (National general audience)	70	60 minutes	70 hours
Hispanic group (Hispanic vehicle owners, ages 18+ who speak Spanish in their home)	35	60 minutes	35 hours
Takata group (Owners of vehicles impacted by the Takata air bag recall ages 18+.)	70	60 minutes	70 hours
GRAND TOTAL BURDEN HOURS			280 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $152,400

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? [ ] Yes [X] 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?

Convenience samples of research participants are screened and recruited to reflect the target audiences. NHTSA plans to work with Heart+Mind Strategies and Focus Forward, third-party vendors, to recruit individuals that meet the criteria for each audience. Recruitment will take place using Focus Forward’s own double opt-in panel. A link to an online screening instrument will be sent in an email invitation, followed by additional instructions for joining the online bulletin board should a respondent qualify to participate. Recruitment will be monitored to include a mixture of gender (among the national audience), age, race/ethnicity, region, income and education.

Administration of the Instrument

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

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[ ] 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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