Provisional drivers intend to speed less: The positive outcome for young drivers of a safe-driving app randomised trial

Speeding is a major contributor to young drivers' crashes and one of their most commonly observed risky behaviours. Practice-oriented research suggests that technology, such as smartphone safe-driving apps (apps), can help reduce risky behaviour like speeding. Some apps' effects (e.g. on speeding) have been investigated in simulator and field studies. Those studies on apps' effects seem challenging to replicate in the real world, do not control for general influences, or focus on short-term effects. Furthermore, the impact of a freely-released app on random users has not been investigated to date. This paper investigates the behavioural effects of one off-the-shelf app, Flo, in a training study with 210 young drivers aged 18 to 25, 84 intervention and 126 control participants. The app's impact on their speeding was assessed in a three-month randomised trial. ANCOVAs were performed to assess separately for changes in the Intervention participants' speeding intention and self-reported speeding behaviour relative to the Control group. The results suggest the intervention significantly affected the speeding intention of participants with provisional driving licences. These findings encourage discussion on the effectiveness of apps in safe-driving training and influencing behaviour, which can potentially be more effective for provisional drivers. We provide suggestion on improving smartphone apps' functionality to increase their potential for positive behavioural change.