DriveFit 2.0 trial evaluation highlights lessons for scalable, evidence-based pre-driver education
DriveFit 2.0, a redesigned pre-driver road safety education programme, has been found to support scalable, curriculum-embedded delivery in schools and colleges according to a new RAC Foundation report.
The report, DriveFit 2.0: Trial evaluation, presents findings from an evaluation, funded by the Road Safety Trust and conducted in partnership with Surrey Fire and Rescue Service across four post-16 settings in Surrey. The study assessed the feasibility, acceptability, and short-term psychological impacts of a teacher-led model of pre-driver education, informed by behavioural science and designed for delivery within the Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) and enrichment provision.
From professional facilitation to teacher-led delivery
DriveFit 2.0 builds on the original DriveFit programme, which previously demonstrated small but significant improvements in young people’s attitudes, intentions, and self-efficacy in a cluster randomised controlled trial using professionally facilitated workshops. DriveFit 2.0 was deliberately redesigned to address scalability challenges by shifting to a three-lesson, teacher-led format that integrates film content with structured classroom activities.
The evaluation examined whether this revised delivery model could be implemented under real-world school and college conditions, how it was received by students, and whether it showed evidence of short-term change in psychological determinants linked to safer driving.
Key findings
The evaluation found that DriveFit 2.0 is feasible to deliver as a teacher-led, curriculum-embedded programme and acceptable to students, with lessons rated as credible, useful, and moderately engaging. Emotional responses were neutral to moderate rather than fear-inducing, aligning with best practice in PSHE and behaviour change. The programme adopts a strengths-based approach, focusing on skills, judgement, and practical strategies rather than fear-based messaging.
In terms of outcomes:
- No significant short-term effects were found for attitudes, intentions, or self-efficacy related to mobile phone use, fatigue, or speeding once baseline levels and trends in the comparison group were taken into account.
- A small but statistically significant increase in perceived risk was observed among intervention students, suggesting a modest improvement in risk appraisal.
Students entered the programme with already risk-averse baseline attitudes, which limited the scope for detectable short-term change. While several outcomes trended in a more safety-supportive direction among intervention students, these changes were not statistically distinct from the comparison group once baseline differences were controlled. Importantly, the intervention group was predominantly male, a group that typically reports lower risk perception and is often less responsive to education-based road safety programmes. The observed increase in perceived risk within this cohort is therefore a noteworthy and encouraging finding.
Implications for policy and practice
The findings highlight a central tension for road safety education policy: teacher-led delivery supports scalability and sustainability, but may be associated with weaker short-term effects than more intensive, professionally facilitated models.
Crucially, the study demonstrates the value of controlled evaluation in applied education settings. Without a comparison group, several of the directional improvements observed among intervention students could easily have been interpreted as evidence of effectiveness. The controlled design shows that such trends must be interpreted cautiously, reinforcing the importance of robust evaluation in informing policy and investment decisions.
The findings point to:
- the importance of delivery mode and facilitation intensity,
- the need for realistic expectations about what pre-driver education can achieve in the short term, particularly where reported baseline risk aversion is already high,
- the value of evaluation designs that clearly distinguish feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness, to avoid over- or under-interpreting early or partial signals of change.
The study also illustrates the practical challenges of conducting real-world trials in schools and colleges, including variability in delivery and the absence of systematic fidelity monitoring across all settings, an understanding of which is critical for building a credible evidence base.
Next steps
The report recommends:
- Testing delivery models in parallel (teacher-led, professionally facilitated, and blended approaches) to better understand how facilitation intensity influences impact.
- Extending evaluation designs to include longer follow-up periods and stronger fidelity monitoring, to capture effects that may emerge or change over time.
The findings indicate that DriveFit 2.0 can be delivered safely and acceptably at scale, with some modest but encouraging benefits, particularly for groups that are often harder to reach through education-based road safety programmes. At the same time, the evaluation does not yet determine which delivery model is most effective. The evidence therefore points towards cautious, informed rollout alongside continued evaluation, rather than assuming that a single delivery approach will achieve the same impacts in all settings.
Overall, the study makes an important contribution to the evidence base for pre-driver road safety education, offering practical insights for practitioners, commissioners, and policymakers seeking to balance impact, feasibility, and scalability in real-world settings.
Steve Gooding, Director of the RAC Foundation said:
“This project shows that translating the previous version of DriveFit material, delivered in an external setting, into something purely for delivery by teachers in the classroom is very hard, given the fact that teachers and the classes they teach come in all shapes and sizes, with different experiences and techniques. It can be done, but its impact cannot be guaranteed.
“The external approach tested in DriveFit 1.0 stands greater comparison with earlier forms of event to promote safe-driving awareness amongst pre-driving age teenagers, and, taking both projects together, it is clear that if an external, facilitated event is to be run it should follow the DriveFit model of engaging the audience through discussion and debate led by a facilitator well-versed in the material, not by trying to seize their attention through shocking images and scare stories.”
Ruth Purdie OBE, Chief Executive of The Road Safety Trust, said:
“I’m encouraged by the findings of the DriveFit 2.0 evaluation report which indicate that pre-driver education delivered within an educational setting is considered to be both feasible and acceptable.
“With an increased focus on new drivers within the Government’s National Road Safety Strategy, it’s important that we look at whether interventions such as DriveFit can have a positive impact on driver attitude and risk awareness among young people. I look forward to seeing where the project goes next.”
About the report
The DriveFit 2.0: Trial evaluation was funded by the Road Safety Trust and supported by the RAC Foundation, National Fire Chiefs Council, National Police Chiefs Council, Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, and Road Safety GB. The evaluation was conducted between February 2024 and September 2025. The report is authored by Dr Elizabeth Box, Research Director at the RAC Foundation who is a behavioural science specialist in road safety intervention design and evaluation.
