Intentions and willingness to engage in risky driving behaviour among high school adolescents: evaluating the bstreetsmart road safety programme.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of a road safety programme on adolescents' willingness to engage in risky behaviour as probationary drivers, adjusted for covariates of interest. METHOD: The bstreetsmart is a road safety programme delivered to around 25 000 adolescent students annually in New South Wales. Using a smartphone-based app, student and teacher participation incentives, students were surveyed before and after programme attendance. Mixed-methods linear regression analysed pre/post-modified Behaviour of Young Novice Driver (BYNDS_M) scores. RESULTS: 2360 and 1260 students completed pre-event and post-event surveys, respectively. Post-event BYNDS_M scores were around three points lower than pre-event scores (-2.99, 95% CI -3.418 to -2.466), indicating reduced intention to engage in risky driving behaviours. Covariates associated with higher stated intentions of risky driving were exposure to risky driving as a passenger (1.21, 95% CI 0.622 to 2.011) and identifying as non-binary gender (2.48, 95% CI 1.879 to 4.085), adjusting for other predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Trauma-informed, reality-based injury prevention programmes can be effective in changing short-term stated intentions to engage in risky driving, among a pre-independent driving student population. The adolescent novice driver age group is historically challenging to engage, and injury prevention action must be multipronged to address the many factors influencing their behaviour.