This survey forms part of a study conducted by the French Interministerial Delegation for road safety with a view to improving the efficiency of the monitoring-penalty policy implemented in France. The survey, carried out from September 1992 to June 1994, consisted in investigating the organization of road checks and the systems for recording and prosecuting road offenders in the eight following countries of Europe with their very different administrative and legal contexts: member countries of the European Union: Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and France; countries which, although outside the European Union, have interesting approaches and among the best road safety results in Europe: Switzerland and Norway. In spite of the problems inherent to this type of survey, the information gathered has given a closer insight into those organizations and legal systems that offer solutions tailored to unsafe conditions on the roads. But objective, consistent indicators were not available from one country to the next and it soon became apparent that a comparative survey would have very little meaning. The study is therefore mainly a descriptive one and in this, it is in keeping with the contract between the Interministerial Road Safety Delegation and the Commission of the European Communities which partly financed this work. (Author/publisher)
Abstract