Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 23, 1993 TAG: 9311230339
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MICHAEL CSOLLANY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT LENGTH: Medium
When people pass the signs on Virginia 42, which read "Safety Belt Use in Newport last week: 46% male; 72% female," many take the reminder in stride and buckle up. Some wonder if the police are watching and put on the belt to avoid a ticket.
Some competitive males buckle up so their gender can catch up to its rival.
Others see it, shrug, and continue on:
"It's only a short trip."
"It'll never happen to me."
But reacting is what Geller wants. As a psychology professor at Virginia Tech and a resident of this southern Giles County community, he studies safety issues and the use of psychology to influence personal behavior.
Geller and students working in his Center for Applied Behavior Systems tracked seat belt use for four months at the intersection of U.S. 460 and Virginia 42.
Their finding: more people traveling straight on 460 - an average of 64 percent - wear their seatbelts than those turning onto Virginia 42 - an average of 48 percent. This is something Geller expected.
His hypothesis was that people traveling on 460 were making longer trips, a common justification to don a seatbelt, even though 75 percent of all accidents occur within ten miles of home.
In May, Geller and associates put up two signs - one on his property close to the intersection, and one on the other side of Newport at the recreation center - noting the data collected on drivers turning onto Virginia 42.
Seat belt use shot up after the sign went up, Geller reported. Within two months, seat-belt use by those turning off 460 surpassed the through traffic.
But then something curious happened.
There had always been a gender gap, Geller explained. More woman had worn seatbelts than men - usually 10 percent more. Then use by men suddenly began to plummet after their seat-belt use peaked at around 60 percent, Geller said.
The professor blamed competition.
"The sign had an initial effect on both men and women," he said. "But when men saw that they couldn't catch up, they gave up. Women are more safety conscious, they understand they have to set an example for others. Men sometimes have a macho attitude, `Well, it'll never happen to me.'"
"Of course," he added, "I'm generalizing."
With an average of 40 percent of men and 70 percent of women wearing seatbelts among the turners, this group again finds itself below those going straight.
So how exactly does Geller compile his data?
Most travelers don't notice the pair of students parked on the south side of the intersection. The pair record the sex and seat-belt use of each passerby. Only if the two students agree - which happens 92% of the time - does the result get recorded.
The pair also record other traffic information, including the use of turn signals, which Geller has found correlates with seatbelt use.
Geller chose Newport because he found it to be just the right size for the experiment. Blacksburg was probably too large, and Roanoke certainly too large.
"You need a small enough community," he said. "People need to sense smallness, togetherness and unity."
Geller suggested that people are most likely to act if they feel their action will affect others - setting an example, for instance.
For now, seat belt use has plateaued. Geller calls people who see the sign and ignore it "resisters."
He insists he has more tricks up his sleeve to get the people of Newport to buckle up.
He might try the same stunt he pulled in the parking lot of the Hoechst Celanese plant in Narrows. He and his associates awarded each seat-belt wearer a silver dollar. "There were a lot of people who were upset they weren't wearing their belts," Geller said.
Tom Trail, Geller's graduate assistant who oversees the project, was reluctant to return this newspaper's inquiries about the signs and the experiment, for fear that it would affect the data.
Geller took a more light-hearted approach. Of course it would affect the data, Geller said. "Let's see how."
His hypothesis: the resisters won't be more inclined to buckle up even after finding out who is behind the plan.
"My only concern is to get people to wear safety belts," he said. "I really don't care whether they knew who did it or why . . . For every 1 percent increase in safety belt use in the country, it saves 200 lives a year."
by CNB