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When there’s money to lose, phone usage while driving drops

Penn Medicine

To make someone put their phone down while driving, show them the money—with a catch, according to new research published in JAMA Open. When a group of auto insurance customers were tempted with a cash incentive—and regular feedback letting the driver know how they were doing compared to other drivers trying to reduce their phone time—handheld phone use dropped significantly, a team at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found.

“In the United States, there are over 800,000 crashes per year due to distracted driving, with cell phone use while driving being a leading cause. This occurs despite numerous laws banning handheld phone use, suggesting additional scalable interventions are needed,” said lead author M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, faculty director of Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit and an associate professor of Emergency Medicine and Epidemiology. “We were able to use the power of humans’ natural aversion to loss and regret, as well as our desire to fit in to social norms, to achieve some significant results.”