Enforcement, together with engineering and education, is recognised as being one of the main ways of improving road safety. However, unlike other measures (such as making engineering improvements to the road or improving behaviour by means of education programmes) enforcement is not always appreciated, or supported, by the driving public. The role of enforcement is further complicated because there are many different types of enforcement activity - and because the punishments for violating (such as fines or license withdrawal) also need to be seen as part of the enforcement process. While some enforcement activity (such as detecting drunken drivers) is widely accepted and approved of, other actions, such as the use of speed cameras and unmarked police cars to impose speeding fines may not be popular or supported by a majority of drivers – especially if the driving public sees this as simply a way of raising revenue rather than promoting road safety. Effective enforcement should be seen as a way of influencing the safety of the majority of drivers rather than ‘catching’ and punishing large numbers of drivers; the reason why enforcement activity should be widely publicised rather than being ‘hidden’ and why low detection rates can be viewed as demonstrating that current enforcement activity is successful. Therefore, it is often the drivers ‘perception’ of enforcement activity – rather than the actual numbers of drivers being detected and charged – that is important. Ideally police enforcement should be accepted by the public as a way of making the roads safer for all users. The driving public’s attitudes towards enforcement are therefore a key element of the road safety problem. The SARTRE3 questionnaire includes a number of questions that provided information directly relevant to the enforcement issue. This chapter will consider the questions that provided information on: • General attitudes towards enforcement • Enforcement of particular behaviours such as speeding and drink-driving • The drivers’ perceptions and experience of enforcement, and • Attitudes towards new ‘technologies’ (or systems) that either help, encourage, or force drivers to comply with traffic laws. A number of these issues will also be considered in–detail elsewhere in this report (e.g. drink-driving in chapter 2, speeding in chapter 3 and new technologies in chapter 9). The latest survey was conducted in 23 countries. While a majority of these countries are members of the European Union (European Union) the surveys were also conducted in a number of ‘candidate’ (or applicant) countries that anticipate becoming members of the European Union in the future. In fact, the European Union supported these countries taking part in the study since they will need to harmonise a number of activities (such as driver and vehicle testing – and enforcement activities) as part of the entry process. The results of these surveys can therefore serve as a ‘benchmark’ for these countries; as well as providing information to all those countries taking part about how they compare to neighbouring countries. As a consequence, the results are often presented separately for member and the total sample. It is important to note that, since different countries conducted earlier surveys, only European Union ‘average of averages’ will be compared here, while the changes over time will be discussed for individual countries in detail in chapter 11. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting