Selecting Communication Channels to Deliver Traffic Safety Messaging: A Guide (2026)
Chapter: 1 Introduction
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Background
Behavioral traffic safety messaging is intended to inform, persuade, and motivate specific groups of road users to modify their risky behaviors with the goal of improving road safety and reducing the number of traffic-related injuries and fatalities. To reach specific road users and influence unsafe behaviors, behavioral traffic safety messages must be developed for and adapted to specific audiences, including demographic subgroups in varying locations, such as automobile drivers, truck drivers, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and rural and urban road users. These audiences tend to be distinct from each other in terms of both demographics and the specific modality of engagement with the environment.
Such campaigns also address a wide spectrum of behaviors for drivers of motor vehicles, including passenger cars, motorcycles, and commercial vehicles. Campaigns tend to focus on vehicle control and driver behavior. These campaigns frequently target speeding, impairment, seat belt use, and distraction, with the type of messaging depending on the target demographic. However, campaigns aimed at nonmotorized or vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and bicyclists often focus on how to avoid being hit or injured by vehicles.
Regardless of the specific behavior addressed by the road safety campaign, reaching the target audience often necessitates a combination of media channels. Given that different audience subgroups consume, interact with, and respond to media differently, traffic safety messaging should be adapted to reach these subgroups using a variety of channels, including social media, broadcast, print, and the internet.
Preferred message content and channels may also depend on a variety of factors, including audience age, gender, geographic location, and risk perception. Thus, traffic safety campaigns use a variety of approaches to encourage behavior change, from information or education campaigns employing facts and figures and logical appeals to celebrity campaigns that make appeals based on status, influence, or ethos. Recent campaigns have employed animated characters or mascots, invoked humor, and used emotional, realistic, and graphic appeals to invoke fear, engage the audience, and spur cognitive processing. However, audiences need to be exposed to these campaigns for them to be effective in changing behavior.
Evaluating exposure to traffic safety messaging can help determine which channels and approaches are most effective in reaching specific audiences and influencing key behaviors. Much as traffic safety campaigns use a variety of approaches to change behavior, evaluations of exposure to those campaigns also use a broad array of evaluation strategies and variables. Some campaigns focus primarily on measuring predictors of increased or decreased safety using observational and cross-sectional data (e.g., self-report surveys, citation reports, crash reports, injury data), while some measure attitudes, opinions, behaviors, and behavioral intent via questionnaires or interviews.
The objective of this research was to develop a guide to delivering effective behavioral traffic safety messaging and examine how different delivery methods impact various demographic groups. The research was based on an evaluation of a variety of traditional and innovative behavioral traffic safety campaigns to identify noteworthy practices and cost-effective approaches. The research included in-depth case examples from several state highway safety offices (SHSOs) and a diverse spectrum of media strategies.
Target Audience
This guide is intended for members of SHSOs, coordinating agencies (national, state, and local) who work in concert with SHSOs to implement and deliver traffic safety messaging campaigns, and other interested stakeholders, such as advocacy groups and additional campaign partners. The products of this work will have broad applicability across most SHSOs.
Overview
This document summarizes the findings from the SHSO outreach efforts and case examples to develop a concise overview of practices related to outreach strategies, evaluations, and lessons learned given the array of media types, targeted behaviors and demographics, and geography. In doing so, this document and the accompanying campaign matrix Excel file focus on how different methods of delivering traffic safety messaging impact (1) different demographic and road user groups and (2) different categories of road user behavior. The guide aims to provide:
- an overview of the current state of the practice, including methods used to deliver traffic safety messaging to different demographic and road user groups and different categories of road user behavior
- a summary of notable and novel strategies for developing campaign assets and recommendations to target audience engagement with digital content and to expand partnership and media opportunities
- a discussion of challenges faced when developing successful traffic safety campaigns
- methods for measuring and assessing exposure and behavior change
- a summary of the key takeaways for delivering effective behavioral traffic safety messaging
