RESEARCH - Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures

A signiﬁcant part of highway safety program activities is devoted to behavioral countermeasures. These include the entire driver control system—from training and licensing to laws and enforcement and sometimes culminating in ﬁnes and sanctions. Given the enormous cost of crashes and the importance of driver behavior in highway loss reduction, it is important that behavioral countermeasures be implemented as effectively as possible.

It is a challenge to accomplish this goal. Driver behavior can be changed, although this is not easily accomplished. Some be-havioral countermeasures are effective; others, including some that are popular and widely used, are not effective. There are many complexities in assessing behavioral countermeasures.