Police surveillance on traffic behaviour is an effective means of preventing accidents. In 1995, the road infrastructure still offers the possibility to road users of making errors. Traffic regulations are not self-evident for all drivers, and some drivers are even unaware of certain important regulations. Therefore, police surveillance will remain important in the years to come. Also in a more distant future a certain minimal level of surveillance will be necessary to prevent the decrement of a gained safety level. Traffic surveillance is one of many tasks of the police forces, and it appears that only limited capacity is used to perform traffic surveillance. This implies looking for ways of optimising the use of this limited capacity to prevent accidents. It is very important that the police uses knowledge about how to optimise its surveillance. Questions to ask are: (1) Which control method gives the largest effect on traffic behaviour ?; (2) How to use a more effective control method with a more efficient use of manpower and means ?; and (3) how to maintain the effect on traffic behaviour as long as possible with a minimal use of additional resources ? Conclusions about the new manual on police surveillance are: (a) More knowledge is needed about optimising police surveillance; and (b) already available knowledge should be used. (A)
Abstract