Regulating traffic safety. Prepared for the Law and Society Programme of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

This report examines and assesses various techniques which have been historically employed to control traffic accidents. These techniques or strategies can be said to fall under two major categories: 1) driver- based countermeasures, including sanctions, rewards, licensing, tort liability and insurance, and education: 2) environment- based countermeasures, including exposure variables, motor vehicle safety design, highway safety design, and post accident injury care. Results of the analysis reveal that it is very difficult to accurately quantify the relative effectiveness of alternative countermeasures, probably because of the inherently multi- causal nature of accidents.