Evaluation of Buckle Up Phone Down in Jackson, Mississippi, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota

Raymond, Paula D.; Redden, Carrie; Benson, Aaron; Womack, Katie N.; Park, Eun Sug; King, Katrina; Johnson, Neal; Tucker, Annette · 2026 · ROSA P / United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This report evaluates the implementation and effectiveness of the Buckle Up Phone Down (BUPD) program, a non-enforcement initiative designed to increase seat belt use and decrease driver cellphone use. Motivated by the high number of motor vehicle fatalities linked to unrestrained occupants and distraction, the study sought to determine if adaptations of the Missouri-originated BUPD program could successfully influence driver behavior in other communities. The research specifically examined implementations in Jackson, Mississippi, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, comparing them against matched control cities, Beaumont, Texas, and Fargo, North Dakota, respectively. The study employed a mixed-methods design comprising process and outcome evaluations. The process evaluation analyzed implementation fidelity, stakeholder engagement, and outreach strategies through data tracking and interviews. The outcome evaluation utilized observational surveys to measure real-world driver behaviors before and after the BUPD initiative. Researchers selected demonstration cities based on demographic and legal similarities to Missouri’s experience, ensuring control cities matched these criteria for valid statistical comparison. Additionally, the report conducted a retrospective theoretical assessment, mapping BUPD components to behavioral change frameworks such as the Theory of Planned Behavior, Health Belief Model, and Social Impact Theory to understand potential mechanisms of influence. The outcome evaluation found no statistically significant increase in seat belt use or decrease in cellphone use in the demonstration cities compared to the control cities. Analysis across demographic subgroups, including sex, race/ethnicity, and vehicle type, also revealed no significant changes. Notably, seat belt use among young adults in the demonstration cities showed a statistically significant decrease post-implementation, driven largely by a substantial drop in Jackson. The process evaluation indicated that while implementation teams executed the program with high fidelity given resource constraints, challenges in engagement and outreach persisted. Theoretical analysis suggested that while BUPD components align with constructs like subjective norms and cues to action, the lack of threat-based messaging limited the applicability of certain behavioral models. The study concludes that these specific adaptations of BUPD did not achieve measurable behavioral change in the short term. However, the authors caution that these results are specific to the implementations in Jackson and Sioux Falls and do not preclude the possibility that other implementations could succeed. The report highlights the importance of understanding implementation challenges and suggests that incorporating additional theoretical elements, such as stronger social influence mechanisms or clearer cues to action, may strengthen future iterations. This evaluation provides critical insights for policymakers and public health officials regarding the complexities of non-enforcement safety campaigns and the need for rigorous, theory-informed design to effectively alter driver behavior.

Key finding

The Buckle Up Phone Down program implementation in Jackson, Mississippi, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, did not result in statistically significant improvements in seat belt use or reductions in cellphone use compared to matched control cities.

Methodology

field_study

Provenance

The full processing record for this entry. Every stage of this paper's journey through the pipeline is logged — what ran, with which tool and model, how many attempts it took, and when it last completed. Discovered via bulk_ingest_rosap on 2026-05-23 (5 acquisition events logged).

Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-10; verification: verified.

Topics

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• seat belt use
• public messaging

Information type

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• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation, policy recommendations
• Empirical Findings: observational prevalence