The purpose of the survey is to chart police contact activities as experienced by driving licence holders. Naturally, memory plays a major part. Through knowledge of police activities, for example accident investigations, the number of breath tests carried out and the number of speed infringements of various types, memory function can be illuminated at the same time as it can be demonstrated that certain types of intervention have a longer lasting impact on driver behaviour than other types. A general conclusion from the survey is that the driving licence holders consider that infringements are more often committed by other drivers' and that police contacts concerning other drivers' have considerably less impact on behaviour than the contacts they have had themselves. Naturally, a questionnaire survey leads to an underestimation of how often respondents themselves infringe different traffic rules and an overestimation of the change in attitude as a result of contact with the police. However, the latter is probably largely due to memory function. The attitude of driving licence holders to police contact activity is very positive and it is questionable whether any other category of public service can show such a good relationship to customers as the relationship between the police and road users. The number of contacts between the police and driving licence holders in 1995 can be estimated at approximately five million, or one per driving licence holder. Male driving licence holders had on average 1.18 contacts during 1995 and female driving licence holders 0.64 contacts. Of the driving licence holders stated 15% that they had never come into contact with the police. 53% of the men and 80% of the women stated that they had never been stopped by the police for offences in traffic as driving licence holders. Of those who had been stopped by the police as a result of traffic offences, 38% of those stopped for speeding said that they had changed their attitude. For other traffic offences, the corresponding figure was 34%. Of those who had been in contact with the police in other situations, normally traffic checks, 9% stated that they had changed their attitude. (A)
Samenvatting