Are police stops more effective than computerised surveillance?

Answer

Both police stops and camera surveillance positively affect road safety and both have benefits and drawbacks. Camera surveillance enables monitoring of large traffic amounts, which police stops cannot do. Camera surveillance of speed and red light negation have proved to be effective in reducing offences and the number of crashes (see the question What is the effect of enforcement methods for each priority? ). An important drawback of camera surveillance is that the offender will only receive the fine a few days or weeks after the actual offence. This may obscure the link with dangerous road user behaviour.

A number of violations can’t be detected by camera surveillance. Examples are drink or drug driving, aggressive driving, violation of rest and driving times legislation, overloading and tuning up construction speed. Therefore, police stops are a necessary addition to camera surveillance. Moreover, in individual cases, police stops generate more impact than camera surveillance. First of all, because police can clarify the reason for a fine. Road users themselves say that unsanctioned warnings during a police stop have the most long-term behavioural effect [68]. Secondly, police stops may lead to criminal records with further-reaching implications, such as a higher penalty when the court takes account of previous criminal offences. Furthermore, road police stops are necessary to implement measures based on individual road user-related offences, such as the provisional licence for novice drivers, the demerit point licence and the repeat offender scheme [11]. In addition, police stops enable police to check for other potential offences apart from the priority offence. Finally, visible police presence in traffic and police stops of offenders confirms the rules and enjoys broad public support [11].

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Traffic enforcement

In the Netherlands, a sustainable road safety approach, in which measures in the fields of Engineering, Education and Enforcement (3Es) are… Meer

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