National Survey of Drowsy Driving Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviors

Action Code: Sources Sought Classification Code: A Solicitation: DTNH2216RQ-00194 Agency/Office: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Location: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration HQ NAICS Code: 541720, Research and Development in the Social Sciences and Humanities, $20.5M. Point of Contract: Vincent Lynch, Contracting Officer, ph(202) 366-9568 Title: National Survey of Drowsy Driving Knowledge, Attitude and Behaviors Description(s): The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is issuing this Sources Sought Notice to identify potential qualified Small Business (SB), Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB), 8(a) Certified SDB, HUBZone SB, SDVOSB, or WOSB concerns that may be interested in and capable of performing the work described herein to conduct a nationally representative survey of a randomly selected sample of drivers aged 18 years or older on their attitudes, behavior and awareness of drowsy driving. NHTSA welcomes all qualified Small Business concerns, with the appropriate NAICS Code and past experience to submit their Corporate Capability Statements that demonstrate their ability to successfully accomplish the goals of the project as listed below. NHTSA does not intend to award a contract on the basis of responses to this notice or otherwise pay for the preparation of any information submitted. Acknowledgement of receipt of responses will not be made; no formal evaluation of the information received will be conducted by NHTSA. NHTSA may; however later on issue a Request for Proposals (RFP). However, should such a requirement fail to materialize, no basis for claims against NHTSA shall arise as a result of a response to this notice. Background: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) mission is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs. The agency develops, promotes, and implements effective educational, engineering, and enforcement programs with the goal of ending vehicle crash tragedies and reducing economic costs associated with vehicle use and highway travel. NHTSA conducts extensive research, development, testing, crash investigation, data collection, and analysis activities to provide the scientific basis needed to support the Agency's motor vehicle and traffic safety goals. In addition to supporting internal NHTSA efforts, NHTSA-sponsored research provides high-quality publicly-accessible data that serves as the basis for countless other research endeavors. NHTSA is interested in drowsy driving's impact on our Nation's roads. While NHTSA has made research contributions throughout the years, including our frequently cited report from the 1998 NCSDR/NHTSA Expert Panel on Driver Fatigue and Sleepiness (NCSDR/NHTSA Expert Panel on Driver Fatigue and Sleepiness, 1998) and our ongoing work on in-vehicle drowsy driving detection, many research gaps still exist that, if closed, would provide substantial progress toward understanding the impact of drowsy driving as well as offering potential solutions to problems it causes. The need for sleep is an inescapable biological phenomenon that when not met leads to widespread and deleterious effects on the mind and body. Whether sleepiness is caused by sleep restriction due to a baby crying all night, a late shift at work, a teenager staying up all night with friends, or due to our natural circadian rhythm, the negative outcomes can be the same. Not surprisingly, the longer someone remains awake, regardless of the reason, negative outcomes become more probable. Sleepiness, without fail, results in cognitive and behavioral decrements that can contribute to diverse negative outcomes including poor school performance, accidents at work, long-term physical and mental health consequences, and, most pertinent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)-motor vehicle crashes resulting in injuries and death. The number of drowsy driving crashes per year has remained relatively constant since NHTSA and others started recording and analyzing related crash statistics. Using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the General Estimates System (GES), NHTSA estimated that between 1989 and 1993 (Knipling & Wang, 1994) there were, on average, 56,000 total crashes (1% of total crashes) and 1,357 (4%) fatal crashes per year that involved a drowsy driver. Using updated data from FARS and GES, NHTSA (NHTSA, 2011) estimated that between 2005 and 2009 there were, on average, 83,000 (1%) crashes and 886 (3%) fatal crashes per year involving a drowsy driver. Due to the subjective nature of the reporting and the reliance on crash investigators who often have to make their best guess of cause in crashes where no survivors remain, FARS data for drowsy driving crashes and fatalities is likely conservative. In the United States a number of surveys have asked drivers if they have fallen asleep while driving before. One study found that 41% of drivers report having fallen asleep at the wheel at some point since beginning to drive, 4% fell asleep during the previous month, 7% during the past six months, and 11% during the past year (Tefft, 2010). A NHTSA study (Royal, Street, & Suite, 2002) using a nationally representative telephone survey of 4,010 drivers also found similar results, 37% of drivers reported ever falling asleep at the wheel and 8% fell asleep in the previous six months. Most recently the CDC (Wheaton, Chapman, Presley-Cantrell, & Croft, 2013) performed a telephone survey of 147,076 drivers across 20 U.S. States. They found that 4% of respondents reported falling asleep in the past 30 days while driving. Drowsy drivers come from every race and ethnicity, gender, age, income level, education, and employment status. Some groups are more frequent drowsy drivers than others. Men report falling asleep while driving in the preceding 30 days more frequently than women (5.3% vs. 3.2%), 25 to 34 year olds are the most likely to report falling asleep while driving (6.3%), as are people with less than a high school diploma or GED (4.8%), black (6.1%) and Hispanic (5.9%) drivers are more likely than white (3.2%) drivers to report falling asleep during driving, and employed (5.1%) and unable to work (6.1%) drivers were more likely than unemployed (3.1%) or retired drivers (1.0%)(Wheaton et al., 2013). Recently, one study explored how college students' self-reported attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control was able to predict study participants' willingness and intention to engage in drowsy driving (Lee, Geiger-Brown, & Beck, 2015). Unfortunately not much is known beyond this about the public's knowledge and attitudes that lead to drowsy driving. Understanding the public's attitudes and knowledge is an important step in building predictive models of behavior that will allow NHTSA to design and deploy countermeasures that will impact the incidence of drowsy driving across the United States. Objective: The objective is to conduct a nationally representative survey of a randomly selected sample of drivers aged 18 years or older on their attitudes, behavior and awareness of drowsy driving. The objective of the project includes identifying relevant prior surveys and publications to inform the current survey design (questions and sampling); developing a multi-modal (primarily web-based) survey instrument and sampling plan that is representative of the United States population as well as representative of the populations of New Jersey and Arkansas; and finally collecting, analyzing, and reporting on the survey results. Capabilities: The corporate capability statement must address the capabilities necessary to accomplish the scope outlined above as well as the additional tasks and characteristics given below: The Scope of Work consists of the design, administration, analysis and reporting of a nationally-representative survey of drivers ages 18 or older on attitudes and behavior on topics involving drowsy driving. The Contractor shall conduct a survey of randomly-selected drivers ages 18 years or older. Drivers in this context are individuals with or without a driver's license, permit or endorsement who operate a motor vehicle. NHTSA aims to collect 7,000 completed surveys; however, Offerors can recommend a different number of surveys in their proposals based on a power-analysis or other appropriate justifications. The survey shall be available in English and Spanish. This project shall follow a probability-based approach that delivers the questionnaire over the Internet and the U.S. mail. Many other NHTSA surveys have previously used random digit dialing telephone surveys. However, deteriorating response rates in telephone surveys and evolving technology require moving away from telephone surveys. NHTSA intends to conduct the survey in an approach that emphasizes Web-based administration but includes a printed-on-paper mode through the U.S. mail. The methodology shall follow address-based sampling, U.S. mail contact, and random selection of a single respondent within households. The Offeror can recommend alternative methods of survey collection methodologies with justification - including supplementing web/mail surveys with telephone data collection. Conducting the survey will require approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and an Institutional Review Board (IRB) and must meet Federal privacy regulations. The Contractor shall work with NHTSA to construct the questionnaire and support NHTSA in preparing the OMB package. The Contractor shall obtain IRB approval to collect data. The Contractor shall host the Web survey, administer the survey over the Internet and U.S. mail, collect the survey data, ensure the privacy of respondents and protection of project data, analyze survey data, and prepare a final report. The Contractor shall identify and access the experience of school districts that have implemented seat belts on school buses to determine the costs and benefits, and any positive or negative unintended consequences. This project will identify any cost recovery mechanisms for the costs related to seat belts. In order for this Condition to be successful, the Contractor shall work with NHTSA's school bus partners to assist in identifying the school districts. Once the school districts are identified, the Contractor shall provide this information to the COR who will notify the NHTSA Regional Administrators of the Contractors intent to contact the school districts within the regions. Format of Corporate Capabilities Statement: Any interested qualified Small Business firms, Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB), 8(a) Certified SDB, HUBZone SB, SDVOSB, or WOSB concerns should submit their Corporate Capability Statement, which demonstrates the firm's ability and past experience in no more than 10 pages to perform the key requirements described above to the identified NHTSA point of contact listed herein. Any proprietary information should be marked as such. All respondents are asked to certify the type and size of their business organization is in-line with the requirements of this Sources Sought Notice, and must be received no later than 7 calendar days from the date of publication of this notice.