CMV Safety | Freight Logistics & Policy | Truck Size & Weight | TACT | Wireless, Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication

The "media" component of TACT:

Focusing more on the real "risk" versus "avoiding a ticket"

As North Carolina prepares to undertake year 2 of the FMCSA TACT program (Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks), ITRE is giving more thought to the media component of the program. North Carolina's first attempt at TACT produced unimpressive results both from the standpoint of measurable improvements in public awareness for the primary media message and from the standpoint of observable change in the behavior of car and truck drivers. FMCSA's notion of an effective TACT media program is one that increases the perception of drivers that if they engage in 'risky' or 'aggressive' behavior while driving in the vicinity of large trucks, they will 'get a ticket.' Given the natural constraints affecting the likelihood that such behavior will even be 'observed' by enforcement personnel and that, if observed, it will be ticketed and prosecuted at a level sufficient to reduce ones future likelihood of engaging in the same behavior, we do not believe the traditional NHTSA enhanced enforcement model (ala Booze It and Lose It, or Click it and Ticket) is sufficient. Fear of getting a ticket may be a necessary component of the TACT model, but one that is not sufficient to generate or to sustain the type of driver behavior desired. We do not disagree that 'avoidance' of a negative outcome can be a motivator of driver behavior. It is simply that avoidance of a traffic ticket, in this case, does not, we feel, constitute the most important thing to be avoided. Our belief is that a media approach that focuses more on the 'risks' of cars and trucks operating in a shared use environment (along with enforcement) will be more effective in changing driver behavior. Toward that end we have drafted some initial media message concepts that we think address these risks. These are PRELIMINARY in every sense of the word. We present them here solely to inform other states participating in TACT of our efforts to more effectively focus and target the TACT media component. (Person to contact for more information: Dr. Ron Hughes, 919-696-2402 or ron_hughes@ncsu.edu)