The perceived severity of traffic offences : implications for owner-onus.

With the introduction of the owner-onus legislation in March 1986 which aims for the increased efficiency of red light and speed camera operations by Victoria Police, it became necessary to remove two offences from the demerit points schedule. These were "disobeying a red light signal" and "speeding by less than 30 km/h over the limit". It was hypothesized that one consequence of removing these offences from the schedule may have been to adversely affect the perceived severity of these offences relatively to others. Comparison of the mean severity ratings in 1985 and 1986 for the above offences indicated that they did not decrease as a result of owner-onus, nor did they increase less relative to changes in other offences.