The development and reliability of a national survey of police officers regarding the enforceability of cell phone use while driving laws

Even though numerous types of cellphone use while driving (CPWD) laws have been passed in the United States, it does not appear that these laws are heavily enforced by police. Two studies conducted among officers from West Virginia and Washington states found that numerous barriers to CPWD enforcement exist. However, no studies have investigated whether barriers to enforcement exist for officers nationally. The purpose of this study was to design a national survey of police regarding the enforcement of CPWD laws and to assess the survey's reliability. The survey was designed based on the existing literature, cognitive tested, and assessed for face validity among experts. Officers were recruited via convenience sampling to assess the survey for test-retest correlation, test-retest agreement, and internal consistency reliability using standardized Cronbach's α and weighted Kappa statistics. Among participants, the test-retest correlations for most sections of the survey showed acceptable correlation (Cronbach α's > 0.7) (N = 6). For test-retest agreement, the median Kappa equaled 0.77 (N = 6). As for internal consistency reliability, responses thought to be associated showed acceptable correlation with Cronbach α ranging from 0.41 to 0.94 (N = 353). Despite the limited number of officers that participated in test-retest correlation and agreement, the survey appeared quite reliable.