The enhancement of traffic safety is only one of the many socially vital responsibilities of the police. As a consequence the police have to make choices on how to spread available personnel. Up to now, information is lacking on police policy in this respect, especially on how much priority is given to traffic safety, and how police policy expresses itself in police activity on the streets. Therefore, a small scale qualitative study was carried out into the motivation of police officers at all levels of the police organisation to carry out `traffic safety' tasks. A police force of a large town was studied. The results indicate that although at a managerial level traffic safety is one of the priorities, at the operational of the priorities, at the operational level traffic safety related activities have almost no priority at all. One of the reasons being that at a lower managerial level the police unit is not confronted with consequences of inadequate traffic safety activities. (A)
Abstract