Increasing seat belt use on a college campus: an evaluation of two prompting procedures.

Researchers placed two different windshield flyers on cars parked at a college. One flyer said "Click It or Ticket." The other said "Please Buckle Up—I Care." They counted how many drivers then buckled up when leaving the lot.

They switched the flyers every day for two weeks. This let them compare the two messages head-to-head without any other changes.

"Click It or Ticket" pushed seat-belt use up 20 points. The softer "Please Buckle Up—I Care" still gained 14 points. Baseline use was 55 percent; the ticket threat lifted it to 75 percent.

Both prompts worked right away and kept working while the signs stayed in place.

Tanoue et al. (1988) saw the same pattern with handicapped-parking signs. A clear rule plus the chance of a ticket cut illegal parking by more than half. Both studies show a short written cue plus possible enforcement beats a polite request.

Green et al. (1987) reviewed 26 studies on delayed prompting. They found prompts usually work fast, but long-term data are scarce. Bigby et al. (2009) adds another quick win, yet also stops once the prompt is gone. The gap is still there.

Petit-Frere et al. (2021) taught poison safety to autistic children with prompts and kept the gain at follow-up. Their extra practice sessions may be why skills lasted. College drivers got no booster, so we do not know if the buckle habit stuck.

You can raise safety behavior tomorrow with a piece of paper and a printer. Pick language that signals real consequences, not just kindness. If you want the change to last, plan brief booster prompts or checks the next week.