Dangerous decisions on the road occur due to momentary lapses in judgment. Our rational, responsible selves take a backseat to the irrational person racing to a meeting, or … read moreovertaking a frustratingly slow driver. The Volkswagen Reduce Speed Dial experiment aimed to disrupt behaviour at this critical moment.
In a controlled experiment conducted by Colenso BBDO and FINCH, directed by Luke Bouchier four families were supplied with Volkswagen Golfs. Unbeknown to the parents, we created a replacement panel for the speedo. They followed all of the clarity and safety restrictions of a standard speedo, but the dial was personally hand written by one of their children. This simple, personal mnemonic aimed to remind our parents what they have to live for at the exact moment they considered speeding.We followed our Kiwi families and their driving habits to understand the impact of this idea and whether we could in fact, engineer safer drivers. The results, whilst indicative at this stage, have been very promising:
One family had no recorded speed infringements after the installation of the personalised speed dial One family reduced their top speed by 19kmh from a max of 123km to a max of 104km. Half of the drivers’ maximum speeds reduced after fitting their personalised speed dial. Three out of the four drivers reduced their incidence of speeding in 100km zones by 50%.Overall, all of the families reduced their speed in multiple driving situations.
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