In mid 1999, a start was made of an intensified police surveillance of the correct use of moped helmets, in eight Dutch police regions. To measure the effects of such an intensified surveillance, it was necessary to conduct before-and-after measurements. The Public Prosecutor's Office (In Dutch: `Openbaar Ministerie' (OM)) asked the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research to produce a research design for the base measurement. This report deals with this pretest, which has been carried out in April 1999. First of all, those aspects of safe helmet use that the police could control were determined. Then the monitoring was tested with attention to: (i) observations, at a distance, versus helmet control and interviews; (ii) the method of halting mopedists; (iii) composition and size of the interviewers team; (iv) length and practicability of the questionnaire; (v) validity of the results; and (vi) to efficiency and costs of the total monitoring. The pretest also paid attention to the possibilities of identifying mopedists correctly.
Abstract