When winning counts...

The Dutch government has set the following quantitative targets for road safety: a 25 per cent reduction in the number of road deaths and injuries by the year 2000 (compared with 1985 levels). Inorder to bring these road safety targets within reach in the short term, it is argued that large-scale police surveillance is essential. A review of the current state of affairs with regard to police surveillance in the Netherlands indicates that a nation-wide, structured approach has not been realised, or even in some ways been approached. Some of the difficulties in setting up such an approach are discussed. One condition for a successful approach is the availability of knowledge concerning the operating process and the effects of police surveillance. It is argued that this knowledge is available, and that it is a matter of translating this knowledge into the specific Dutch context. Taking up this challenge, SWOV sketches the outlines of a proposal for a nationwide program of police surveillance that is estimated to save 180 lives a year