Can social marketing make 20Â mph the new norm?

The findings suggest three possible driver types in relation to 20 mph areas: 'champions', 'pragmatists' and 'opponents'. The paper discusses the possible mapping of these types onto Moore׳s 'crossing the chasm' variant of Rogers׳ diffusion of an innovation model. Here, the 'chasm' represents the difficulty in encouraging compliance amongst pragmatists in the same way as champions. Based on this, it is suggested that social marketing techniques can provide a 'bridge' over this 'chasm' to pragmatists by helping position 20 mph limits as the new norm for urban areas. The mechanism for change would be to support 20 mph as the descriptive norm (what people believe is normal) as well as the injunctive norm (what people think should be normal). In theory, a social contagion effect would help to spread the new behaviour amongst pragmatists-eventually generating a tipping point in which pragmatists would move en-masse, quickly shifting from driving at 30 mph in urban areas to 20 mph-'because everyone else does'.