contract€no:€019744 deliverable 6 … ·...

SIXTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMMEPriority 1.6 Sustainable Development, Global Change and Ecosystem

1.6.2: Sustainable Surface Transport

Police Enforcement Policy and Programmes on European Roads

Contract No: 019744

Deliverable 6Comparison and analysis of traffic

enforcement chains across EU MemberStates and in relation to EU policies

Due date of deliverable: 28/02/2008Actual submission date: 21/08/2008

Start date of the project: 1/3/2006 Duration: 30 months

Organisation name of lead contractor for this deliverable: DTU Department of Transport, TechnicalUniversity of DenmarkAuthors: Lotte Larsen, DTU

Vassilios Vavakos, CERTH/HITDavid Zaidel, 4Sight

Final

Project cofunded by the European Commission within the Sixth FrameworkProgramme (20022006)

Dissemination level:PU PublicPP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)

PU

PEPPER Project Consortium

1 VTT Technical Research Centre ofFinland

FI

2 4Sight, Ergonomics & Safety ISR

3 IBSRBIVV Institut Belge Pour LaSécurité Routière

BE

4 KLPD/TISPOL Korps LandelijkePolitiediensten / NL

5 bfu Schweizerische Beratungsstelle fürUnfallverhütung CH

6 CERTH/HIT Hellenic Institute ofTransport GR

7 BASt Bundesanstalt für Strassenwesen D

8 CDV Transport Research Centre CZ

9 DTU Department of Transport,Technical University of Denmark

DK

10 IBDIM Road and Bridge ResearchInstitute

PL

11 INRETS Institut National de Recherchesur les Transports et leur Sécurité FR

12KfV Kuratorium fürVerkehrssicherheit(Coordinator)

AT

13 SWOV Institute for Road SafetyResearch

NL

14 TØI Institute of Transport Economics NO

15 TRL Limited UK

16 UPM Universidad Politécnica deMadrid ES

17 VTI Swedish National Road andTransport Research Institute SE

18 ETSC European Transport SafetyCouncil INT

PEPPER Deliverable 6 Dissemination Level: PU Contract No: 019744

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Abstract

The aim of this Deliverable is to describe and compare Traffic Law Enforcement systems inthe Member States. Focus is on: speeding, drink driving and non use of seat belts.

Data were primarily collected by questionnaires. The main results show that most countrieshave more or less explicit Traffic Law Enforcement plans with focus on the three areasincluded. Action plans are often very generic and data about actual implementation are scarce.

Speed limits as well as BAC limits vary between the countries. Random breath testing throughalcoholmeters is commonly applied, while blood testing is used as a complementary when thelegal evidence is needed for a court.

Seat belt use is in general obligatory for all persons, but far from all the countries haveconsistent enforcement of this measure.

In all three areas, violation and sanction data are most frequently collected, while datacollection on violations by foreign drivers is rather sparse.

Publicity campaigns appear to be carried out to various degrees, but the combination ofenforcement and campaigns is not always given priority.

Mostly, cross border enforcement is only practiced to a limited degree.


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Contents

ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................ 3

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................... 5

ABBREVIATION LIST .......................................................................................................... 7

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 91.1 Background............................................................................................................... 91.2 Objectives of the Deliverable .................................................................................... 91.3 General comments on the text ................................................................................. 10

2 METHOD........................................................................................................................ 112.1 Preparation of the questionnaires............................................................................. 112.2 The data collection process...................................................................................... 112.3 The questionnaire.................................................................................................... 12

3 ROAD SAFETY POLICY CONTEXT............................................................................ 133.1 The role of enforcement in EU safety policy............................................................ 133.2 National Road Safety Plan (NRSP) and TLE........................................................... 163.3 The important role of TLE in National Road Safety Plans ....................................... 223.4 Basic attributes of Traffic Policing Systems in EU countries ................................... 32

4 FOLLOWUP OF OFFENCES: DEMERIT POINT SYSTEMS ANDREHABILITATION PROGRAMS.................................................................................. 474.1 Demerit Point Systems (DPS) ................................................................................. 474.2 Rehabilitation programs .......................................................................................... 49

5 TLE PROCEDURE FOR THE THREE SELECTED TRAFFIC LAW VIOLATIONS .... 515.1 Traffic Law Enforcement procedures after speeding................................................ 515.2 Information of the enforcement chain in the field of drinkdriving........................... 615.3 Enforcement of restraint use.................................................................................... 68

6 CROSS BORDER ENFORCEMENT.............................................................................. 74

7 PUBLICITY CAMPAIGNS............................................................................................. 777.1 Publicity campaigns regarding enforcement of speeding.......................................... 787.2 Publicity campaigns regarding drinkdriving ........................................................... 787.3 Publicity Campaigns regarding Restraint use........................................................... 79

8 CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................. 81

9 REFERENCES................................................................................................................ 87


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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The aim of this Deliverable “Comparison and analysis of traffic enforcement chains across EUMember States and in relation to EU policies” is to describe and compare the structure,function and processes of the enforcement chain in the Member States. This includes thedecision making process (where and when to enforce), the actual enforcement, theadministrative and legal handling after infringement, and the followup procedures. Animportant aspect is also to give documentation of information gaps in each state, especiallywith respect to data categories described in the Annex of the EC Recommendation onenforcement in the field of road safety (2004/345/EC): Speeding, drinkdriving, seat belts andcrossborder vehicles and drivers, see Annex V.

Data about the enforcement chain has been collected by means of questionnaires distributed toeach of the Member States plus Switzerland.

The results can be summarized as follows:

w Almost all EU countries have a National Road Safety Plan. Most of them have accidentreduction targets fairly similar to EC target of about 50% fatality reductions. Ingeneral, the plans do not specify fatality reduction targets by area of action.

w Traffic Law Enforcement is always a significant component of National Road SafetyPlans (or of similar policy statements) even if it is not always referred as such directly.

w Almost all EU countries focus on enforcement of speeding, drink driving and nonuseof seat belts. The means to improve Traffic Law Enforcement include intensifyingpolice enforcement, increased automatic speed enforcement, increasing alcohol checks,increasing the severity of sanctions and increasing the coordination of policeenforcement with public media campaigns.

w Most National Road Safety Plans do not include special funding provisions for the plan.

w Regarding police forces, the details of local traffic policing are primarily determined by“local wisdom” taking into account the suggestions of a national policy or plan.“Traffic police” is often organised in a complex way, which may have practicalimplications for implementing the European Commission Recommendations andcollecting the data requested.

w In all EU countries various media are used to inform the public at large about aNational Road Safety Plan, new legal initiatives and local actions in the area of TrafficLaw Enforcement, but to a various degree.

w Of the three levels of data elements to be reported to EC, the Traffic Law Enforcementchain description is attainable, but it is much more complex than perhaps anticipated.The enforcement action plans that are available in most countries are very generic. Dataabout actual implementation of traffic policing are especially scarce. No country canprovide reliable national data on actual deployment of police enforcement, especiallynot in urban areas.


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w No country seems to have an Enforcement Coordination Point in charge of collectingthe Traffic Law Enforcement data from the many sources in a country.

w Bilateral cross border agreements vary, and are limited to reciprocal tracing of violatorsand collection of fines. No country allows another country access to its registries.

w Accident data are available in all countries, and sent to the IRTAD database. Manycountries also collect limited data on some of the indicators related to speed, drinkdriving and belt use.

w Demerit Point Systems in the countries differ. In 13 responding countries with DemeritPoints only about half of them are covering all three considered offences.

w In the limited number of countries reporting to have rehabilitation programs/schemes ofsome kind, it seems most often just to be traffic lessons or improvement courses.

w The speed limits vary between the countries, especially for motorways and highways,and should be harmonized. Regarding automatic speed registration, in 6 out of 8countries the followup procedure is not more effective than by manual registrations.Therefore, the benefits of automated registration are limited to the first part of the chain(detection), while the technology has the capacity to automate and speed up the followup procedure.

w The BAC limits in the countries vary from 0.0 g/l to 0.8 g/l. Almost all the countriescarry out random breath testing in systematic surveillances of drinkdriving as well as apart of the normal traffic enforcement. Most often alcoholmeters and blood testingdevices are used, while evidential breath testing is not used at high degree yet.

w In almost all the countries seat belt use is in general obligatory for all persons. Onlyhalf of the 18 countries have consistent and repeated enforcement of restraint use.

w Speeding and drinkdriving violations are followed up with fines, and most often with acombination of different kinds of sanctions. Typically, the procedure is administrative,but becoming criminal with the seriousness of the violations. Sanctions for not wearinga seat belt are often less severe than for speeding and drinkdriving. Most often, theresponsibility of wearing seat belts lies on the driver and the passengers.

w Publicity campaigns appear to be carried out to various degrees in the countries and thecombination of enforcement and campaigns is not always given priority.

w Regarding data on enforcement, violation and sanction data are most frequentlycollected. Less attention is given to data concerning changes in rules and courtdecisions, while data collection on violations by foreign drivers accounts for thegreatest information gaps in all three focus areas: Speed, drink driving and seat belt use.


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Abbreviation List

BAC Blood Alcohol Content

BNAO Bulgarian National Audit Office

CARE Community database on Accidents on the Roads in Europe

CCPD Centres De Coordination Police Douanes

DPS Demerit Point Systems

EC European Commission

ECMT European Council of Ministers of Transport

ENTRAC Energy Transport Actions

ESCAPE Enhanced Safety Coming from Appropriate Police Enforcement

ETSC European Transport Safety Council

EU European Union

FCVV Federal Commission for Traffic Safety

GADGET Guarding Automobile Drivers through Guidance Education and Technology

NGO Non Governmental Organization

NRSP National Road Safety Plan

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

PEPPER Police Enforcement Policy and Programmes on European Roads

RSF Federal Road Safety Fund

SMADIT Joint Action against Alcohol and Drugs in Traffic

TIS.PT Transport, Innovation and Systems S.A.

TLE Traffic Law Enforcement


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1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Traffic enforcement by the police has shown to have great safety impacts, but it is notoptimally deployed either in terms of strategic or tactical planning (ESCAPE 2003).

The general objectives of the PEPPER project are to increase the effectiveness of trafficenforcement throughout EU by showing the way to data led police enforcement operations,dissemination of good enforcement practices between the Member States and more rapidadoption of new technologies in enforcement.

This Deliverable is a part of Work package 1 in the project, a Work Package focusing on“Strategic, legal, administrative and social context of Traffic Law Enforcement (TLE) inMember States”. More specifically, the Deliverable presents the results of Task 1.2, which hasthe objective to describe the structure, function and processes of the enforcement chain in theMember States.

Another important aspect of Task 1.2. was documentation of information gaps in each State,especially with respect to data categories described in the EC Recommendations: Speeding,drinkdriving, seatbelt use and crossborder vehicles and drivers.

1.2 Objectives of the Deliverable

The overall objective is to compare and analyse the Traffic Enforcement Chain across the EUMember States and in relation to EU policies. More specifically the objectives are descriptionsand analyses of :

w The role of National Road Safety Plans (NRSPs) as an important basis for Traffic LawEnforcement

w The function and processes of the enforcement chain in relation to speeding, drink driving,seat belt use and crossborder vehicles and drivers, including: decision making processes (where and when to enforce) the actual enforcement the administrative and legal handling after infringement the followup procedures the ability to collect data requested by the Commission with respect to implementing its

Recommendation on Enforcement.

The findings are compared to the Recommendations of the European Commission (see AnnexV).


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1.3 General comments on the text

In this Deliverable references are continuously made to the EC Recommendation. Thesereferences concerns EC Recommendation 2004/345/EC, see Annex V.

Further, in all the questions used for data collection it was possible to add comments, an optionused with varying degrees by each respondent. Consequently, the amount of information forany country or issue was not similar. Many of the comments were valuable and their substancewas integrated into the text.

In addition to the tables in the text, more tables are presented in an Annex, belonging to D6:Deliverable 6: Comparison and analysis of traffic Enforcement chains across EU MemberStates and in relation to EU policies. ANNEX.

Contribution to the Deliverable:

David Zaidel (4Sight) has composed section 3, “Road Safety Policy Context”.

Vassilis Vavakos (CERTH) has composed section 5.1, Traffic Law Enforcement proceduresafter speeding violation

Lotte Larsen (DTU TRANSPORT) has composed the rest of the Deliverable.


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2 METHODThe description of the enforcement chain is primarily qualitative, and data has been collectedby questionnaires sent out to all Member States plus Switzerland.

2.1 Preparation of the questionnaires

Some of the questions in the questionnaire were filled in before they were sent to the MemberStates, using information from the following previous research with results from 2004 andforwards:

ETSC: Traffic Law enforcement across the EU (2006)

Enforcement Monitor 2006 (all numbers): ETSC’s newsletter on Traffic Law Enforcement inthe EU.

TIS.PT: Comparative Study Of Road Traffic Rules And Corresponding Enforcement ActionsIn The Member States Of The European Union”

Data from previous studies such as GADGET (2000) and ESCAPE (2003) were not used, asmany things may have changed since their data collection.

Finally, a few questions were filled in beforehand, based on results from WP. 4.4

Section 3 in this Deliverable has further been complemented with information from the ECMT/ OECD TS3 Country reports (OECD / ECMT, 2006); CARE country profiles (CARE, 2005)and ENTRAC Country Reports (ENTRAC, 2005).

2.2 The data collection process

The partners in this task are DTU Transport, 4Sight, TISPOL, BFU, CERTH, CDV, IBDIM,INRETS and DTL. Each partner was responsible for data collection in one or more MemberStates, i.e. they were responsible to contact relevant persons in the respective Member Statesand ask for their help with data collection in their own country. Data could be collected frome.g. Traffic Police headquarters secretariat, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Justice etc.

Included Member States:

Questionnaires were completed and returned from the following 18 countries: Czech Republic(2004), Poland (2004), Slovakia (2004), Latvia (2004), Lithuania (2004), Cyprus (2004),Hungary (2004) United Kingdom, Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium,Greece, Italy, Spain, Austria, and Switzerland.

Bulgaria and Rumania did not receive a questionnaire, as they were not Member States whenthe project started.


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As the number of Member States responding on the questionnaire was only 17 in the firstround, it was decided to cut down the questionnaire to the most important information in orderto increase the chance of getting information from more countries. The primary reductionconsisted of reducing the number of questions concerning NRSPs.

The reduced questionnaires were sent to those Member States that did not answer in the firsttime round, but only one Member State (The Netherlands) responded.

Data was collected by various actors in the different countries, but primarily by ResearchInstitutions, Police, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior.

The data presented reports the situation up to May 2007.

2.3 The questionnaire

The full questionnaire consists of 5 parts:

Part 1 refers to the road safety planning context. The objective is to examine the existence of aNational Traffic Law Enforcement (TLE) plan under the umbrella of a NRSP. If a TLE plan insome way is included in a NRSP this could guarantee to some extent the coordination,continuity and consistency, and maybe the financial support of a TLE plan. In this part theorganizations involved in road safety and especially in TLE, the targets set for TLE, theconvergence with the EC policies and Recommendations and the existence of monitoring andreadjusting mechanisms are investigated.

Part 2 refers to the existence of a Demerit Point System and Rehabilitation Programs.

Part 3 is divided into three focused areas: Speed, drinkdriving and restraint use. The existinglimitations and sanctions set by the Road Traffic Act are reviewed for each type of violationand special issues pertaining at each type of violation are examined, e.g. automatic registrationprocedures for speeding, evidential equipment for BAC testing, intensive enforcement actionsfor restraint use etc. A number of the questions listed in this part have been covered by otherprojects in the past, but it was considered useful to include them in this questionnaire forreasons of updating and completeness.

Part 4 refers to the collection and eventual reinvestment of fines.

The questionnaire had a Part 5 as well, consisting of questions of opinions, which aim atidentifying strengths and weaknesses (internal factors), opportunities and threats (externalfactors) of the TLE chain as well as foreseen, announced or expected changes in the TLE chainin the Member States.

However, the responses on part 5 were too sparse to give an impression of the situation in theMember States. As a consequence, results from this part of the questionnaire will not bepresented in the Deliverable.

The full as well as the reduced questionnaire are presented in Annex IV.


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3 ROAD SAFETY POLICY CONTEXT

3.1 The role of enforcement in EU safety policy

The White Paper on European Transport Policy, which was approved by the EuropeanCommission on 12 September 2001 (European Commission, 2001) set up the safety goal ofhalving the number of road accident victims (fatalities) in the European Union by the year2010. The responsibility for achieving this ambitious target is shared by all stakeholders in thetransport system and by all Member States.

The European Road Safety Action Programme (European Commission, 2003) identified fourmajor areas of actions for promoting the EU, Member States, regional and local authorities,industry, transport companies and private users, to progress towards the policy goal of halvingthe number of road fatalities: Induce road users to improve their behavior, make vehicles safer,make professional transport safer, and improve road infrastructure.

The EC identified four major policy instruments for influencing / improving road userbehavior:

w Active, harmonized and internationally cooperative Traffic Law Enforcement (TLE) bythe official police agencies in each member state,

w Better control of driving licenses,w Better control of professional drivers and,w Public persuasion by media information and campaign.

The EC Recommendation on Enforcement (European Commission, 2004) encourages eachmember state to set up a “National Enforcement Plan” for implementing the specificoperational measures contained in the Recommendation, regularly evaluate and modify theplan when necessary, and provide the Commission with information about the plan and theprogress of its implementation (See Annex V).

Table 3.1 summarizes the 13 main action points of the Recommendation on Enforcement.


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Table 3.1. Commission Recommendation On Enforcement In The Field Of Road Safety

1 Set up a national enforcement plan containing the measures they intend to take for theimplementation of this Recommendation and provide the Commission with this nationalenforcement plan, which should contain the information described in chapter I of the standardform laid down in the annex

2. Evaluate regularly and may adapt the national enforcement plan in accordance with relevantdevelopments and provide the Commission with information concerning such adaptations;

3. Ensure that enhanced enforcement actions described in recommendations 4 – 7 will becombined with information to the public, which will be given in the form of publicity campaignsaiming at making the public conscious of the subject concerned, which shall be held for each ofthe three subjects of enhanced enforcement actions separately, and in the form of roadsideinformation concerning concrete enforcement actions carried out on that road;

4. Ensure that automated speed enforcement equipment is used to check speeding onmotorways, secondary roads and urban roads and ensure that the checks are carried out in sucha way as to guarantee their effectiveness, namely that they are carried out regularly on stretchesof roads where noncompliance occurs regularly and where this brings about an increased risk ofaccidents;

5. Provide for procedures assuring that all speeding violations registered by the automated speedenforcement equipment are followedup;

6. Ensure the application of random breath testing with an alcohol screening device as aleading principle for surveillance of drinkdriving and in such a way as to guarantee itseffectiveness; with a view to this, in any event ensure that random breath testing is carried outregularly in places where and at times when noncompliance occurs regularly and where thisbrings about an increased risk of accidents, and ensure that officers carrying out random breathtesting checks use evidential breath test devices whenever they suspect drinkdriving;

7. Ensure that intensive enforcement actions concerning the nonuse of seat belts with aduration of at least two weeks take place at least three times a year, in places where nonuseoccurs regularly and where there is an increased risk of accidents, and ensure that the use of seatbelts is enforced in every individual case where nonuse is observed and the car is being stopped;these enforcement actions may take place in combination with other traffic enforcement actions,such as those concerning speeding and drinkdriving;

8. Apply as a general policy that violations detected in the course of the enhanced enforcementactions prescribed in recommendations 4 – 7 are followedup by the infliction and execution ofa sanction and/or a remedial measure and ensure that sanctions applicable to speeding, drinkdriving and nonuse of seat belts are effective, proportionate and dissuasive, that acts which aimat hindering or circumventing enforcement are subject to sanctions based on the same principles,that sanctions are more severe in the case of repeated serious violations committed by the sameoffender and that sanctions include the possibility of suspension or withdrawal of the drivinglicense and of immobilization of the vehicle for serious violations;

9. Member States assist one another in order to give proper effect to this recommendation forwhich purpose every Member State will designate an enforcement coordination point andprovide each other and the Commission with the coordinates of this coordination point; theenforcement coordination points will be used for exchange of best enforcement practices appliedby Member States in the fields covered by this recommendation and will also carry out the task ofcommunicating the information to the Commission as described in recommendation 12, and shallmoreover send the same information to the coordination points of the other Member States;


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10. Ensure that serious or repeated offences jeopardizing road safety committed by a nonresident driver are reported to the competent authorities of the [other] Member State inwhich the vehicle is registered, through the enforcement coordination point concerned mentionedin recommendation 9, which will keep record of such communications between Member States;

11. Ensure that the competent authorities of the Member State in which such serious or repeatedoffences have been recorded will ask the competent authorities of the Member State in which thevehicle is registered for appropriate measures to be taken with regard to the offender and ensurethat in such cases, the latter Member State will inform the first Member State about the follow up ithas given to the request, and ensure that the coordination points mentioned inrecommendation 9 will be used for these contacts between Member States;

12. Communicate the information on the implementation of this recommendation anddevelopments in the fields in question to the Commission every two years, in accordancewith chapter II of the standard form laid down in the annex; the first year covered by this reportfrom Member States will be the first full calendar year after the date of publication of thisrecommendation; the information will reach the Commission not later than 30 September followingthe date on which the twoyear period covered by this report expires;

13. Examine, at the end of the first twoyear period mentioned in recommendation 12, theeffectiveness of existing national measures of measures taken subsequent to thisrecommendation and inform the Commission of their findings.

The measures recommended by the European Commission pertain to specific efficient methodsfor controlling, via TLE, the three non compliance behaviors identified as having the largestimpact on safety: Speeding, drinkdriving, and nonuse of safetybelts.

In addition to behavior specific enforcement tools, the recommendation also considers“horizontal type” measures, relevant to all types of noncompliance behaviors. These includethe complete and efficient processing of citations, appropriate sanctioning of all violations,harmonization of TLE regulations and practices, international cooperation regardingoutof state violations, and wide provision of information to the public concerning thespecific activities of traffic law enforcement.

The EC Recommendation on Enforcement logically follows “The European Road SafetyAction Programme” that, in turn, was derived from “The White Paper on European TransportPolicy”. The readiness by each member state to implement the measures listed in theRecommendation on Enforcement (including the annex listing in detail the informationrequested by the Commission) depends, in part, on the extent that certain prerequisitessubsumed by the Recommendation, do in fact exist in the state.

Alternatively, one may also suppose that “in principle” readiness, in the sense of willingness,(political, professional and, subsequently, legal) to accept the Recommendations, wouldfacilitate the creation, in each state, of the mechanisms and tools needed to implement theRecommendations.

The first prerequisite or condition is that a country has an explicit Transport Policy thatincludes a significant Road Safety Policy component with an ambitious accident reduction


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target similar to that expressed by the Commission. The 2nd condition is that a State shares theEC view that police enforcement is the major policy instrument to achieve the safety target.

The 3rd condition is that the practice of TLE in a state is according to a reasoned and explicitEnforcement Plan, which is derived from the general National Safety Strategy or Plan and,consequently is given funding, political and other support commensurate with the expectedcontribution of the Enforcement Plan to the safety targets. The 4th condition is that Local LevelEnforcement operations (in regions, districts, local communities in the country) are derivedfrom National Plans and follow the same procedures.

The 5th condition is that the enforcement policy in a given state accepts, like the EC, thatmassive enforcement of Speeding, DrinkDriving and Non use of Seat belts is the mosteffective way of influencing roaduser behavior and of reducing road fatalities. The 6th

condition is that safety plans and enforcement operations in a state are routinely and widelypresented to the public in order to raise awareness and gain acceptance and support.

The remaining set of prerequisite conditions for implementing the Recommendation concernthe availability of specific and detailed sets of data about roads, traffic behavior, compliancerates, attributes of enforcement locations, site sampling procedures, deployment ofenforcement forces and instruments, violation records and followup, and other requirementsspecified and implied by the “Annex to the Recommendations”. A related condition is theavailability of a monitoring and evaluation mechanism in the country, whereby data such aslisted above, can be collected, analyzed and evaluated, so that the enforcement plan or itsintensity could be modified according to the outcomes.

The next sections will examine how the current (or recent) situation in the area of road safetyand traffic enforcement in EU countries, measure up against the assumptions and requirementsof the EC Recommendation on Enforcement. The information for the countries is based on asurvey questionnaire and interviews with relevant contacts in many of the countries (PEPPERTask 1.2.2, Task 4.1) and complemented with similar, partially overlapping, information fromrecent surveys published by others: The ECMT / OECD TS3 Country reports (OECD / ECMT,2006); CARE country profiles (CARE, 2005); ETSC Enforcement Compendium by Country(ETSC, 2006); ENTRAC Country Reports (ENTRAC, 2005) and several country specificdocuments and personal contacts.

3.2 National Road Safety Plan (NRSP) and TLE

Since the mid 1990’s more and more countries have produced National Road Safety Plans,open to scrutiny of professionals and the general public. Some states, such as Finland, producean updated new plan every 3 or 5 years. The OECD report “Safety on Roads what’s thevision?” (OECD, 2002), analyzed the 20+ safety plans from OECD countries and suggestedseveral criteria for developing an effective plan. In particular, this report, and subsequentpublications by others, sharpened the distinctions between “safety vision”, “safety targets”,“safety strategy or policy”, “detailed safety action plan”, lists of “safety measures”; It alsoarticulated the importance of defining performance indicators (for safety, enforcement, or anyother activity) and their corresponding monitoring and evaluation systems.


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3.2.1 How National Road Safety Plans are made

During the last 10 years just about every country in the EU (including accession countries) haspublished a National Road Safety Plan with a “vision”, a “target” and a varied mix of “safetyproblems”, “safety priorities”, “safety measures”, “safety actions” and, sometimes, “newinitiatives”. These documents are typically a product of government interdepartmental /coordinating committees, under the leadership of one most responsible department (usually aministry of transport or equivalent), and with participants or consultants from the road safetyresearch community and other stakeholders. The committees reflect on the safety situation andsafety problems and needs, list ongoing measures, projects and activities of the agenciesrepresented in the coordinating committee, suggest new measures in various areas and,sometimes, offer a priority list, legal prerequisites, funding requirements and impact estimates.

In some cases, e.g. Belgium, Finland, Austria, The Netherlands or the Czech Republic aRoad Safety Research organization was given the task to prepare a draft document that wasthen discussed and approved by a government’s transport department (or an inter departmentalcommittee) and eventually by the relevant political authority (e.g. a parliament).

The complex administrative structure of the bodies involved in creating a NRSP isdemonstrated even by the case of Cyprus, a small country with a centralized governmentstructure.

The Cyprus Road Safety Council is a national council advising the Ministry ofCommunications and Works on road safety issues. The Council is chaired by the Minister ofCommunications and Works. The members represent all involved authorities in road safety: theChief of Police, the Attorney General, the Directors of the Departments of Public Works andRoad Transport, the General Directors of the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Education, theMinistry of Finance and the Cyprus Radio Foundation. A Road Safety Unit has been set up inthe Ministry of Communications and Works, which acts as the executive, administrative andmanagerial tool of the Road Safety Council. The Unit analyses road safety conditions and riskfactors and monitors actions and measures scheduled for implementation out of the StrategicAction Plan 20052010. The Unit presents a report of the progress of the Strategic Road SafetyPlan to the National Road Safety Council every four months. The Council of Ministers isbriefed annually on the progress of the Strategic Action Plan and is asked to approve thefunding of actions and the provision of required staff and equipment.

Finland provides a similar example of a centralized government that has had a long andsuccessful experience in preparing effective NRSPs with significant participation of manystakeholders yet with a very coherent leadership by the coordinating Ministry. The Ministry ofTransport and Communication is coordinating the plan and its implementation with the help ofThe Consultative Committee on Road Safety. This is a permanent body that advises theministry and initiates safety reviews, studies, and evaluations. The research community is veryactive in this body. One of its roles is to prepare a draft of next NRSP.

The Consultative Committee comprises representatives from:

w The Ministry of Transport and Communications


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w All nontransport governmental bodies involved in road safety issues (The Ministry ofJustice, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Affairs andHealth, Ministry of the Environment)

w The Finnish National Road Administration

w The road safety research community (Technical Research Centre of Finland, Universityof Tampere, University of Helsinki)

w Main roaduser organizations (Finnish Transport Workers Union, Central Organizationfor Motor Traffic, Confederation of Finnish Industry and Employers)

w Other stakeholders (Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, CentralOrganization for Traffic Safety in Finland, Finnish Motor Insurers' Centre).

The NRSP in Finland is “duplicated” in the regions, where most of the implementation needsto take place. The State Provincial Offices coordinate the road safety work of several sectors inmunicipalities. This takes place through the Provincial Traffic Safety Committees, withrepresentatives from key actors in the field. The traffic planning departments of the ProvincialState Offices set the road safety goals for each province. They also make the plans forsupporting and activating the road safety work and reporting on the progress made to theMinistry of Transport and Communications.

In another example, from Belgium, the Federal Road Safety Plan (General Assembly on RoadSafety) of 20012002 and 2007 was created by a working group appointed by the FederalCommission for Traffic Safety (FCVV). The group is lead by a non governmental researchbody. The group includes expert representatives from various government agencies, insuranceorganizations, road user groups and other public and private stakeholders. Most of theprofessional work was done by researchers at BIVV/IBSR. The group drafted the BelgianNRSP that was debated in the parliament, modified, and eventually adopted formally by theGovernment.

Yet another example, demonstrates that a Ministry of Transport is not always the seat of bodiesplanning a national road safety strategy. The Danish Commission on Road Safety wasappointed by the Danish Ministry of Justice in 1966. The Danish Commission on Road Safetyadvises the Ministry of Transport on road safety. The Commission includes members of theDanish Parliament, politicians from counties and municipalities, representatives of NGOs,research organizations, other stakeholders and various experts. It is the Danish Commission onRoad Safety that drafted the National Road Safety Action Plan of 2002. Under this overallnational road safety plan, all counties and more than 100 local authorities have set their ownregional programs, targets, and safety action plans.

Germany is an example of a federal country that chose not to launch a formal NRSP with aVision statement and quantitative fatality reduction Targets. The federal Ministry of Transport,Building and Housing, issued policy document called "Program For Improved Road Safety,"which lists over 100 measures addressing a wide range of safety problems. At the federal level,the Federal Police is not officially involved in preparing the policy document about road safety.However, the “Länder” may develop their own policies and action plans and involve theirstate’s police in the process. Also in Switzerland, with federal structure of Cantons, The


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Federal Roads Authority (FEDRO) prepared a NRSP, which has only a recommendation status,but Cantons tend to follow it.

TLE is always represented, in all countries, in committees (or workgroups or taskforcesdepending on the national structure of government and public service) preparing a NRSP, byexperts from ministry of police and traffic police, ministry of justice, ministry of interior, andother agencies responsible for legal or administrative sanctions.

3.2.2 Numerical Safety Target as a road safety “Vision”

One can argue that a “Vision” of a “safe transport system” is expected to express a view of thenature of the transport system and what kind of priorities it should reflect regarding life style,social values, ecological values, urban landscape and more. A “vision” should help and guidewhen making choices between conflicting demands, between alternative courses of action. Forexample, the Dutch Sustainable Safety concept, is a Vision, not a target. A fatality reductiontarget is a km post on the road to the vision, one that may be needed when making choices atcrossroads. Nevertheless, many, if not most National Road Safety Plans seem to present theirnumerical fatality reduction target as the driving Vision behind the Plan, or Strategy.

The ECMT Council of Ministers, (which includes most EU states, Canada, US, Japan, Korea,Australia, NZ, and few others) during its Bucharest meeting in 2002, adopted unanimously thetarget of a 50% reduction in the number of victims killed in road traffic accidents by 2012, incomparison with 2000 baseline (ECMT, 2002). Subsequently, the European Commission set aslightly more ambitious safety target for its Member States, namely, reducing by 50% thenumber of road fatalities by the year 2010 compared to 2001.

Table 3.2 summarizes the reported or published targets in various countries. Most countries setonly one target figure, overall reduction in road fatalities. Some set targets for injuries as wellor differential targets for various road user types. Few countries also set specific targets fordifferent categories of safety measures.


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Table 3.2. Safety Targets in most recent EU National Road Safety Plans

Country TargetsLatvia 50% fatalities and 20% injured persons by 2010.

Slovenia 50% fatalities by 2005 compared to 1995. Target was not reached.New target in line of EU target. Several sub targets.

Czech Republic 50% in fatalities by 2010 compared to 2002

Poland Less than 3500 fatalities in 2010 (compared to 5640 in 2003, i.e. 38%)

Hungary 50% fatalities and injury accidents by2015 compared to 2001

Cyprus 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to2001 of 1999 2003

Greece HE 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 2000

Spain 40% fatalities by 2008 compared to 2003.50% by 2012

Italy No national target

Netherlands Less than 580 fatalities by 2020.Several sub targets

Austria50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 19982000.20% less injuries;Targets for user groups and road types

UK No national target

Ireland 25% fatalities by 2006 compared to 19982003 several sub targets

Belgium 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 19982000 (about 750) (first indicator), or a maximumof 7 fatalities per 100 000 inhabitants (second indicator). A new target of 500 deaths by2015 was proposed in the 2007 NRSP.

Denmark 40% fatalities and seriously injured by 2012 compared to 1998, no more than 300fatalities

Switzerland 50% fatalities and 50% seriously injured by 2010 compared to 2000.

Finland Less than 250 fatalities by 2010.Less than 100 fatalities by 2025

France Unofficially, no more than 4000 by 2007, which is 50% compared to 2001 (figure for 2007was 4620)

Estonia No more than 100 fatalities by 2015 compared to 2003

Germany No national target but states sometimes do(NRW: 50% in fatalities by 2015)

Bulgaria 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 1991.2004 20% fatalities by 2006

Lithuania 50% fatalities and 20% injury accidents

Luxembourg

Malta 50 % fatalities and 50% injury accidents by 2014 compared to 2004

Norway 30% killed and seriously injured by 2015 compared to 2004.

Portugal 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 19982000 Several sub targets

Romania 50% fatalities by 2012 compared to 2002.

Slovak Republic 50% fatalities by 2010 compared to 2002.

Sweden 50% fatalities by 2007 compared to 1996


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An examination of the safety targets in National Road Safety Plans shows that most countriesreport to have accident reduction targets fairly similar to ECMT or EC targets.

All countries have targets for fatalities, while a few countries such as Denmark and Hungaryextend the target to injuries as well. Latvia and Lithuania have different target values forfatalities and injuries. Targets are typically based on the percentage change (from a referenceyear) in numbers of fatalities and/or injuries. Finland, Estonia, and Netherlands use absolutenumbers and some (e.g. Cyprus, Denmark) mention also the numerical representation of the% change. Most countries refer to the year 2010 or 2012 as the target year, and few set out alsointermediate targets for shorter terms. The reference year is either a single recent year or themean of three to four recent years, such as 1999 2001.

Although France has not adopted a road safety target officially, the Minister in charge of theFrench NRSP challenged the nation to an ambitious new objective for 2007 no more than4,000 yearly fatalities on French roads. This would mean a 50% reduction compared to 2001figure (8,160) within only six years. This unofficial Target was announced in 2005, followingthe large drops in fatalities and injuries beginning in 2002, which reached to just under 5,000fatalities in 2005.

There is no formal NRSP or national safety target in Germany. The federal governmentmaintains that persistent implementation of the current hundreds of specific safety measures inall areas (with occasional new ones, as research warrants them) will continue the downwardstrend in fatalities. Nevertheless, some federal states (Länder) do adopt specific fatalityreduction targets, following the practice recommended by the EC. For example, North RhineWestphalia developed its own regional RSP and established a target of halving the fatalities by2015.

Perhaps one reason for the reluctance of the Federal Government to commit to a NationalTarget is the present reality of large differences in safety situation (and perhaps capacity toimprove it) among states, principally along the west east divide.

Most NRSPs do not specify fatality reduction targets by area of action, such as highrisk sitetreatments, enforcement or medical services, even though the choice of action areas was guidedby the anticipated potential for safety gains (fatality reduction). This is probably a prudentapproach, as it would be near impossible to separate the unique contribution of each area ofactivity at a national level when all action programs are implemented at the same time.However, Ministerial or Agency programs sometimes set fatality reduction targets, in their ownsafety plans. For example, the Cyprus NRSP does not specify a target for the reduction offatalities through TLE. But the Cyprus Traffic Police document “Annual Strategic Plan forFacing the Traffic Problem In 2007” does set a specific target for a reduction of 10% infatalities in 2007 compared to 2006 (in absolute numbers, in Cyprus it would mean 77 downfrom 86 fatalities in the year 2006).

Sometimes (implied) specific targets for TLE in the NRSP are actually estimates of potential,based on assessment of behaviors involved in accidents, of what enforcement could achieve, IFit was 100% effective in elimination of those behaviors. For example, the Czech NRSP liststhe contribution of speeding, drinkdriving, non use of restraints and other traffic violations to


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fatal accidents, as 14%, 4%, 6% and 25%, respectively. Police quoted those figures in itsbudget requests suggesting the potential benefit TLE could have, but not committing to reachsuch targets. Also the Finnish plan estimates that the fatality reduction potential of TLE isabout 22%.

3.3 The important role of TLE in National Road Safety Plans

Road Safety Plans or Strategies address a wide range of safety problems and safety measureson a number of overlapping dimensions. Table 3.3, taken from an Austrian Road SafetyProgram, is a typical example of areas selected for focused attention in a National Road SafetyPlan.

Table 3.3. Priority Areas of the Austrian Road Safety Program

Human Behavior Infrastructure Vehicles Policy + Frameworks

Restraint systems Black spot treatment Accident datarecorder

Independent Accident Analysis

Alcohol and other drugs Safety on rural roads Lorry safety Heavy goods transport

Driving speeds Tunnel safety Passive vehiclesafety

Legislation

Basic driver educationand advanced drivertraining

Wrongway driving onmotorways

Regional planning

Pedestrian safety Safety management inurban areas

Influencing modal choice

Driving fatigue Road Safety Audit

Drivers of motorized twowheelers

Road Safety Inspection

Following distances Safety in motorwayroadwork zones

Daytime running lights Material properties of roadsurfaces

Traffic education Roadside Telematics

The issues are classified in four general areas human behavior, infrastructure, vehicles, and acategory that includes a mix of policy & management targets and tools, which cut acrossseveral areas. The items in the cells in the Table are not intended to be conceptually orpractically independent. For example, Daytime Running Lights, a relatively simple safetymeasure, is listed under Human Behavior, in as much as it may involve educating drivers toactivate the lights during the day. Nevertheless, it may also require proper legislation,enforcement, or vehicle standards that will lead to automatic activation and turning off oflights.

The Priority Table 3.3 above does not have a category or a measure that directly refers topolicing or enforcement. However, many of the measures, especially those addressing Human


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Behavior problems or measures, rely on the use of TLE as part of the solution to the problem.For example, in further sections of the plan, in the priority area of “Restraint Systems”, it isstated that the safety target is to achieve a 10% increase in the use rate of seat belts and a 95%compliance with child restraint use. More forceful TLE is expected to induce the increase inrestraint use.

Table 3.4 provides an overview of main TLE initiatives in recent NRSPs, funding provisionsfor the plans, the extent of public involvement in their formulation or dissemination, and whatmonitoring mechanisms, if any, were created to assess to implementation of TLE initiativesand their behavioral and safety impacts.

Table 3.4. TLE focus, funding, public involvement and monitoring, in recent European NRSPs

Country Notable attributes and focus of theNRSP with respect to HumanBehavior area and TLE

Funds linked tothe plan

Publicinvolvement

Monitoring andupdatingmechanism

Latvia Yes Yes

Lithuania Yes Yes Traffic SafetyCommissionsession at leasttwice a yeardiscussingproblems andsolutions

CzechRepublic

“More efficient TLE” based onlegislative support, higher penalties,penalty point system, some automaticspeed and RL cameras, SafetyCampaigns.

No Media anddebate

AnnualEvaluation

Poland Yes No

Cyprus Setting up administrative and legaltools to manage safety; TLE of dd,belt and helmet use, control ofprofessional drivers, extendedcoverage of the road network withunpredictable pattern in space andtime. Increase of drinkdriving tests,and TLE at black spot locations. Zerotolerance to violation of traffic rules byyoung drivers.

Yes; moremoney availablefor programs thatfollow the NRSP,but regularfundingmechanisms.

Media Yes, specialmonitoring unitfor the NRSPplanned

Greece No No

Spain Enhance enforcement of Speeding, DD, belt and helmet use; point system,compliance surveys,

Yes, largeincrease innumber of TrafficPolicemen,cameras andradars.

Media BiannualassessmentObservatoryIndicatorsassociated withkey actions.

Italy Yes No

Netherlands Extend speed “section control” yes yes


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Publicinvolvement


Austria Support decentralization of safetymanagement to federal states, regionsand local government.; strengtheningregulations & inspections; increasingsize of fines; “section” automaticspeed enforcement; more efficientenforcement of drinkdriving, belt use,following distance; “point system”update

Yes; incentivesfor local projectsin line with NRSPmeasures; % ofspeeding finesgo to police

Media anddebate

Researchevaluation ofspecificmeasures.Limitedmonitoring

UK Generalawareness andspecific issuesare raised

Ireland Mandatory BAC test of every accident,since 2006.

No Yes

Belgium Areas of emphasis (“attention points”)for enforcement speeding, drinkdriving, seat belt use and severalspecific violations with potential forautomatic enforcement. Speed andDrink driving enforcement intensified.

Yes; Road SafetyFund cofinanceslocal police byreturning % ofthe revenues

Media anddebate

One timeMonitoringprojects ofspeeds, dd, beltuse, publicopinions

Denmark Intensified police efforts targetingdrinkdriving, speeding and seat beltuse. Strong linking of Traffic policingand public campaigns, semiautomatic speed and RL enforcement,semi random breath tests, increasedsanctions and follow up, point system.

No Media, andcopies of theplan are sent tothe counties andmunicipalityadministrations

Researchevaluation every4 years

Sweden

Switzerland Increased traffic controls, fasttrackand standardized sanctionsprocedures, RBT, BAC down from 0.8mg/ml to 0.5 mg/ml. since 2005.

Yes Yes Yes; Researchevaluation every4 years

Bulgaria Developing the legal framework andadministrative tools for enforcement ingeneral, and for speed dd and beltenforcement, in particular.

EU & World Bankfunding andplans for newlocal funding

No Only Accidents

Germany No “vision” plan. Federal “Program forImproved Road Safety," Continues apolicy of promoting over 100measures covering many problemareas.

The usualprocess

Media The usualprocess

Estonia New Traffic Branch and Enforcementunits in police force , improve “poorsafety attitudes”, drinkdriving,campaigns, speeding, belt use

Yes, generallymore funding fortransport

Media 3 year researchevaluation


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Publicinvolvement


Finland Speed, DrinkDriving and drug control,continue deployment of semiautomatic fixed speed cameras,regulations regarding professionaldrivers, introduce more effectivesanction systems

No, use regularagency budget

Media Continuousresearchevaluation

France Focus on speed, dd, restraints andhelmets; Automatic speed controlsystems, administrative law, toughersanctions, stricter followup, lessleniency, huge political support, strongpublic awareness

Yes, facilitatedfundingprocedures,investment inautomatic speedenforcementsystems

Intensive mediacampaigns, Toppolitical figures inthe media, hotpublic issue

Observatory andresearchevaluation

3.3.1 TLE focus areas in National Road Safety Plans

In broad terms, just about all EU countries have assimilated the EC position about thecentrality of efficient enforcing of speeding, drink driving and non use of belts (and helmets)in the strategy for reducing road fatalities. These problem areas, or target behaviors, arementioned in all NRSPs. The proposed means to improve the efficiency and effectiveness ofTLE in these areas include general reference to “intensify” police enforcement in these areas,increased reliance on automatic speed enforcement, raising the number of alcohol tests(random or otherwise), conducting seat belt enforcement campaigns, and increasing thecoordination of police enforcement with public media campaigns.

Another focus area is increasing the impact of police enforcement by raising sanctions onspeeding and drink driving, lowering speed limits and drinkdriving thresholds, and byimproving followup actions in the enforcement chain, such as fine collection, setting up pointsystems and better handling of repeat violators. In the new EU Member States (e.g. Bulgaria,Cyprus, Estonia, Czech Republic), more than in others, the NRSPs are also concerned withbuilding the capacity of the institutions of TLE, through provision of the needed legislativesupports for TLE, by redefining the best organization of Traffic Police forces or functions, andby securing stable funding.

NRSPs do not usually address the methods of police operations, with the exception ofreference to massive automatic speed enforcement, as in France or Spain. When a target area(e.g. speeding on rural roads) or a road user group (e.g. professional truck drivers or youngdrivers) are mentioned in the policy document, police are expected to deal with the noncompliance behaviors relevant to the issue, using their usual methods, perhaps “more of it”.National Road Safety Plans and TLE plans always refer to other top level safety issues inaddition to the three or four (with cross border enforcement) focus issues recommended by theEC. The Czech Republic plan, for example, lists the following as main road safety issues inthe country:


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w Speeding.w Seat belts and child restraint devices in general.w Safety in urban areas.w Safety on railway crossings.w Visibility of vulnerable road users.w Safety on motorways.w Drinking and driving of young drivers.

The issues concern different dimensions that can overlap (for example, speeding is a trafficbehavior that is contributing to the lack of safety on motorways) and no priority is implied bythe order of the items in the list.

Increased or improved traffic enforcement is offered as one of the road safety initiatives toaddress each of these problems. But note that drink driving is seventh in the list and not one ofthe first three.

In Bulgaria, the NRSP identified four main reasons for the accidents: inappropriate speed,alcohol consumption, driving without a license and small penalties for such offences.According to the Bulgarian National Audit Office (BNAO), even with the small fines,Bulgaria’s traffic police had collected only six percent of the fines imposed on traffic violators.Therefore, it is not surprising that Bulgaria’s safety policy focuses on creating the legal,organizational and financial framework for enabling police to perform their tasks effectively.

The recent Finnish program includes the following main policy goals of the program:

w Improve cooperation between the agencies responsible for the program,w Prepare for new Directives and Recommendations by EU and EC in the area of

transport and safety, and develop the cooperation mechanisms with other countries andthe EU institutes

w Reducing head on collisions on main roads, by better enforcement and technologicalmeans

w Reducing pedestrian and cyclist accidents in urban areas by better urban planning,traffic management and speed control

w Reducing accidents involving intoxicants, alcohol and drugsw Reducing accidents in professional transport by better regulation, enforcement,

management, training and licensingw Increase the impact of enforcement by creating more effective sanctions and followup

(e.g. higher fines, partial owner responsibility).

In Federal countries the government’s role is primarily facilitating the implementation ofpolicy suggestions by the states (or Cantons in Switzerland) local governments. Each state willchoose what measures to adopt, and will adapt them to the needs and conditions in each state.

The recent German Federal policy identified the following major goals:

w Improve the behavior of all road users, particularlyw Improve speed compliance and avoid drink drivingw Protect vulnerable road users


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w Reduce the accident rate for young driversw Reduce the accident potential of heavy vehiclesw Improve road safety on motorways.

Among the more specific TLE measures the policy advocates are:

w Extension of 30 km/h zones in builtup areasw Lowering the speedlimit on rural roadsw Local speed camerasw Intensify enforcement of drink driving, drunk pedestrians,w Adopt quicktesting breathalyzers, drugs screening devices, alcohol interlocksw Conduct frequent campaigns linked to the enforcement effortsw Enforce seat belt and helmet usew Introduce onthespot fines for licensing and tachograph offences by heavy goods

vehicles and busesw Strengthen the enforcement of compulsory rest periods for drivers of heavy goods

vehicles.

Clearly, none of the measures advocated are new to the German safety management inventory.The German safety strategy is based on continuous implementation efforts of a wide range ofevidencebased measures in all problem areas and by all agencies, including TLE agencies.

The French NRSP identifies speeding, drinkdriving and non use of seat belt as main causesof road fatalities. It practically vows to increase police enforcement of these and other trafficoffences, increase fines, and reinforce the penalty point system and other follow up measures,particularly that of losing a driving license. Specific actions included enabling legislation (e.g.shifting most of violations from criminal court process to administrative procedure, ownerliability, higher fines, lower BAC limits for professional drivers), putting into service largenumber of advanced fixed and mobile speeding detection equipment, instituting efficient semiautomatic systems for processing citations and collecting fines, raising the number of policeofficers on active TLE duties, massive public information about road safety and TLE actions.

Other significant safety actions in the French NRSP deal with novice drivers, vehicleinspections, registration of mopeds, and a whole program of road safety audits, safety orientedinfrastructure improvements on state roads, as well as mandatory mechanisms to oblige urbancommunities to improve safety on their roads. The French NRSP of 2002 and its yearlyupdates, is special in that it relies very heavily and explicitly on TLE as the major mechanismto achieve the objective of reducing accidents dramatically in a short period of time. Thedetermined upgrading of the whole TLE chain has improved substantially its efficiency andeffectiveness. As this effort produced immediate results, it served to rally French politicians,the police forces, other agencies, the media and the public, to the support of TLE, of course,but also support other measures and initiatives included in the NRSP.

Traffic Law Enforcement is always a significant component of NRSPs (or of similar policystatements such as in Germany or the United Kingdom) even if it is not always referred as suchdirectly. Instead, as in the examples from Austria, the Czech Republic, or Germany,demonstrate, a “speeding problem” might be mentioned and the intent to put more policingeffort in controlling it. Similarly, a NRSP might define a behavior safety target of increasing


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the use of seat belts or reducing the incidence of drink driving, and specify that TLE, alongwith public media campaigns, should induce the behavioral change.

3.3.2 Funding

Funding is a major implementation tool of public policy. A well reasoned NRSP, if it lacksvalid funding provisions, could remain just an interesting document (although even a meredocument could inspire better policy action). Most NRSPs in EU countries do not includespecial funding provisions for the plan, and not because of overlooking the need or lack oftrying. It is simply due to the regulated and political complexity of public funding in eachcountry and the fact that “road safety” or “traffic enforcement” is just one of many sociallyworthy competitors for public funding, which is always limited.

The Czech Republic’s NRSP, for example, states that the financing of the plan will burden thebudget of state, counties and municipalities, but without specifying the actual expected costs.The authors suppose that funds will be allocated, and suggest that there is a need to find in nearfuture other sources of financing, including contributions from the private sector.

The most common way of handling the funding issue is for every ministry that takes primeresponsibility for certain area in the Plan, to refer to the NRSP when it develops its specificpolicies and action programs. It then submits funding requests through the mandatory publicbudgeting process in the country with the officially approved NRSP as a reference documentthat help justify the financial demands. The success of the requests depends on the manypolitical, economic and other factors in the power game for public funds. For example, the 2ndNRSP of Cyprus, for the period 2007 –2010, provides a general framework for specializedaction programs that are to be developed by the responsible agencies. In the area ofenforcement, the ministry of Justice and Public Order in Cyprus is then charged withdeveloping action programs in the spirit of the NRSP and include their funding as part ofoverall budget request. In Cyprus, the ministerial budgeting cycle takes place every two years.Financial assistance will also be sought from EU funds and from the private sector.

Some countries provide extra funds for special road safety action plans, either by increasedtreasury allocations or through special funding schemes linked to road taxes, fuel taxes, vehicleinsurance or traffic violation fines.

For example, in Belgium, the NRSP was allocated €420 million per annum, of which €140million was marked for enforcement and sanctioning systems. In addition, money collected bytraffic fines is put into a Federal Road Safety Fund (RSF). This fund gives financial support topolice services (both federal and local) for specific road safety actions and according to actualperformance. In 2004, for example, €42 million were returned to the police for enforcement ofspeeding, drinkdriving and seat belt use (including campaigns). Police districts in Belgium arethus encouraged to submit annual TLE action plans in those areas.In Germany the National Road Administration and the local authorities (Länder) areresponsible for implementation and financing of the measures to improve road safety on thefederal and nonfederal road network, respectively.


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A number of countries (e.g. Switzerland, Estonia) reported a reduction in the number ofpolice units or personnel dedicated to traffic policing. This trend is felt since the early 1990’swith the economic pressures to reduce public spending and greater importance given by thepublic to protection from criminal activities. One consequence of the shifting social priorities isa return to an earlier, prespecialized mode of police functioning, where more police officersare considered generalists, who can shift to different police tasks, as needed. This situationmakes it more difficult to reliably implement a TLE plan, since police manpower for trafficenforcement depends on what happens in other fields of local enforcement.

3.3.3 Public involvement

Public involvement in formulating and implementing a National Road Safety Plan takes manyforms. In all EU countries the political process, at all levels of government, expresses, to somedegree, public opinion. Legislators, politicians, interest groups and private citizens debatesafety policies, legal actions, funding issues, through formal negotiation or consultationmechanisms and in the Media at large. The media is used to inform, to influence and, ifpossible, to shape public policy and public behavior. The process is not unidirectional, asdecision makers, stakeholders, the public and even the media editors, each try to influence theothers. Public involvement is particularly important in the case of TLE. This is so because mostof the instruments used in TLE are restrictive or punitive for the citizens, and because TLE isabout changing human behavior such as driving slower, drinking less or not at all, buckling upeven when it is not convenient.

While in all EU countries there was general support by the public for making TLE moreefficient and fair, many specific proposals for changing the legal status quo or the proceduresfor TLE in a given country, were publicly debated and sometimes rejected. For example,random breath testing was rejected in the United Kingdom, vehicle owner liability forautomatically recorded speed violations were rejected in Nordic countries, and until recentlyalso in France.

During the implementation phases of specific TLE measures, public involvement, primarily viathe mass media, is crucial in order to increase awareness and to impart relevant information tothe public about the expected behavior on the roads and the consequences of non compliance.Accurate knowledge about the reasons for TLE, the process of TLE, the actual behavioralconsequences of TLE and their safety impacts, are believed to help internalizing the norms ofcorrect and legal traffic / driving behavior.

In all EU countries various media are used by the government, and more specifically by TLEagencies, to inform the public at large about a NRSP and about the new initiatives in the areaof TLE. The extent of informing and involving, however, varies considerably among countries.At the minimum it may consist of few time news item and a webpage with the basicinformation. During periodic topical enforcement campaigns, in all countries, there will be alinked mass media campaign on radio, billboards, newspapers, busses, TV, web – as financeswill allow.


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Some countries (e.g. The Netherlands, France) engage in repeated, continuous and interactiveform of public involvement in safety initiatives and TLE through mass media and otherchannels such as surveys, townhall meetings or direct mailings. In France, it is claimed that“The change in the political agenda and public awareness, together with increased mediacoverage, has been a main factor in defining and implementing new road safety measures inFrance in recent years. The media has paid more attention to road safety issues since theautumn of 2002. Gendarmerie regional commanders and local police chiefs are invited to radioand TV programs at every opportunity to discuss safety and TLE and to communicate with thepublic. The approach is to increase the common awareness that road safety is everyone'sresponsibility” (Personal communication).

Furthermore, it was observed that although the number of speed cameras in France at the endof 2005, was only a fourth of the number used in the United Kingdom (with roughly samepopulation and smaller territory), the impressive impact on traffic behavior (and accidents) wasdue to the huge publicity that accompanied automatic speed enforcement and generated apowerful change in behavior of road users. A recent poll in France showed that 75% of theadult population is in favor of further development of the automatic speed enforcement system(Personal communication).

3.3.4 Monitoring and Evaluation

In the present context, “monitoring” refers to a specific mechanism for monitoring the processof implementing the policies and action plans of a NRSP (especially the parts dealing withTLE). The monitoring is supposed to go beyond a yearly count of road accidents and fatalities;it should count and measure relevant performance indicators of the actions resulting from thepolicies.

In the field of TLE, the indicators might be new legal actions, installation of N hundreds ofautomatic speed cameras, conducting N million Random Breath Tests annually, carrying out Nseatbelt enforcement campaigns, beltuse rates by vehicle occupants observed in systematicfield surveys, the number of issued processed and paid traffic citations, speed patterns onvarious types of roads, and many other measures. Such measures can indicate the extent thatTLE plans are actually implemented and whether their behavioral or organizational effects arein the expected direction. Subsequently, some of these indicators might also be used in“evaluation”, that is, assessing and interpreting the impact of the safety oriented policies andactions on the ultimate measure of their success – the number of fatalities.

As in the case of “monitoring”, also “evaluation” in the present context, emphasizes therepeated periodic or continuous impact assessment and not a one time research effort at anevaluation. This means that a country wishing to monitor and assess the progress of its NRSPwould need to define an organizational structure (newly created or within an existing researchorganization) and provide stable funding to carry out the monitoring and evaluation. This alsoimplies that the monitoring and assessment need to be on a large scale, nationally (orregionally) representative, and be based on methods and tools that are standardized,transparent, relatively simple and accepted by the professional community.


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Working Papers 23 and 24 of PEPPER discuss in more detail monitoring and evaluation needsand measurement issues of Enforcement Performance Indicators (EPI) and Safety PerformanceIndicators (SPI). The SafetyNet project has also addressed these issues (SafetyNet, 2007).

The concept of Road Safety Observatory is perhaps the closest to the needed entity to monitorand assess the relevant safety performance (or TLE performance) indicators in a country.However, only few countries (France, Spain, The Netherlands) have several elements of suchsystems in place, although many others are planning to have them(http://www.erso.eu/data/Content/introduction.htm).

Observers in France pointed out how having monitoring system and indicators helps policeand other convince the public (and politicians) to accept further measures for advancing safety.“A major advantage in this regard is that behavioral indicators on speed, alcohol and seat beltuse, and indicators for traffic accidents have been available in France for some time. Figuresproving the success of the new measures could be presented to the public without delay”.

In Spain, the National Road Safety Observatory is the responsible organization to identify andassess the best practices and to measure and follow up –on a biannual basis the quantitativeobjectives [e.g. fatality reduction targets], and to measure the indicators associated with the keyactions. There are 26 specific strategic objectives related to speed, drinkdriving, restraints use,young drivers, black spots, motorcycles and others. The following measurable indicators weredefined for some of the specific objectives:

w Fatalities in accidents per million inhabitantsw Changes in the ratio number of speed controls / sanctionsw Changes in the ratio number of drinkdriving controls / sanctionw Reduction of random speedsw Reduction of positive alcohol testsw Changes in % of occupants using restraintsw Changes in drivers (and nondrivers) opinions about road safetyw Black spots reduction

The Spanish NRSP list 182 Key Actions, many in the area of TLE. Associated to the 182 KeyActions there are some relevant Activity Indicators and Performance Indicators.

The common situation in all European countries is that accident data are collected routinely,and are entered into several databases1. Many countries also collect limited data on some of theindicators related to speeds, drinking and driving or belt use. Data on other noncompliancebehaviors are typically available only as a byproduct of administrative violation citationsrecords, and almost nothing is known about their relationship to population wide and networkwide non compliance.

Where specific safety measures are mandated by a NRSP, they are often introduced first asexperiment or pilot project, sometimes with a research project to assess the outcomes of themeasure. These are a one time projects and not a continuous monitoring mechanism. Therefore,the mere fact that a country has an active safety research program (list of various projects on a

1 see ERSO http://www.erso.eu/data/content/european_databases.htm

http://www.erso.eu/data/Content/introduction.htm

http://www.erso.eu/data/content/european_databases.htm


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variety of subjects) or that that are several government bodies, each assigned to collect somestatistical data that might be considered, in principle, as a safety indicator, is not the same asproviding in the NRSP for a monitoring and evaluation system. Working paper 24 by WP4 ofPEPPER offers a more detailed analysis of TLE monitoring and assessment issues, andprovides several suggestions for good practice in this area.

3.4 Basic attributes of Traffic Policing Systems in EU countries

3.4.1 Traffic Law Enforcement Chain The schematic model

The implied conceptual model of TLE underlying the EC Recommendation on Enforcement isbased on what might be termed the Criminal Theory of Deterrence, and is schematicallydepicted in Figure 3.1. The figure shows the main (generic) institutions involved in theenforcement chain and the common sequence of functions in the chain, from generalsurveillance to particular followup on specific traffic violators.

The legal framework of Traffic Law, in all its forms, governs the rules of conduct by driversand other road users. Traffic law also empowers police, various administrative bodies and thecourts (the 3D boxes) to engage in their respective functions in the enforcement chain, asdescribed in the oval elements in Figure 3.1.


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Traffic Law Legislation

PoliceEnforcement

General deterrence

Specific deterrence

Fixed fines &Administrative

sanctions

Driver, vehicle &violation follow up

Non complying drivers, many

GeneralSurveillanc

ViolationDetection

Checks, manual& automatic

Courts

Media &

information am

plify impacts

General deterrence

Fixed fines &Administrative

sanctions


Media &

information am

plify impacts

Traffic Law Legislation Non complying drivers, many

GeneralSurveillance

Traffic Law Legislation

PoliceEnforcement



GeneralSurveillanc

Traffic Law

Punishment, fixedfines, other sanctions

Road usersComplying with

traffic laws

Increasingly fewer noncomplying road users

Specific deterrence

Driver, vehicle &violation follow up

ViolationDetection

Courts

General deterrence

Administrativebodies & units

Media &

information am

plify impacts

PoliceEnforcement



GeneralSurveillance

Traffic Law

Figure 3.1. An overview of TLE enforcement chain & deterrence mechanisms.

Had all drivers behaved according to the letter and intent of the law, there would be no need forpolice to actively enforce traffic law. Many road users (box on top left corner), for the mostpart, indeed comply with the law, just because it is the law and the logical thing to do. It is notknown, however, how many would continue doing it if there were no police to enforce the law.

The first and most elementary function in traffic policing is general surveillance, whichessentially means police being seen on the roads. It is believed that the mere presence of policereminds people of the law and increases compliance level (depicted by the going up dashedarrows). However, as the Recommendation on Enforcement clearly states, more effectivetraffic policing entails systematic active checks, aided by technology and automatic whenpossible. This is particularly important with respect to enforcing speed, drinkdriving and seatbelt use. The knowledge, and experience of being checked, induces more drivers to complywith traffic law. General Surveillance and active driver / vehicle checks are believed toincrease compliance through, what is known in criminal theory, the social mechanism ofgeneral deterrence.


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The next step in the enforcement chain, as it relates to driver behavior, is detecting trafficviolations by specific drivers / vehicles, recording and processing the violations and makingdrivers (or vehicle owners) accountable for the violations. There are two main tracks fornetting out consequences to traffic violations sanctions imposed by administrative bodies(such as driver licensing administration), and sanctions imposed through the court system,depending on the severity of the violation and other factors.

All sanctions are a form of punishment, and in criminal theory the punishment handed to theindividual driver is supposed to induce specific deterrence (decreased inclination to repeat theviolation). According to criminal theory the “individual lesson” is generalized to other types ofviolations, and other people learn from the experience of the punished violator. Thus, there is afeedback loop from Specific deterrence to General deterrence depicted by the dashed arrowbetween the two boxes, in Figure 3.1).

The last function in the enforcement chain involves follow up on the implementation of thesanctions (such as actual payment of fines, non driving when license was suspended orrevoked), special handling of recidivists (such as by point systems) or administration ofalternative forms of sanctions (such as alcoholism rehabilitation of drinkdriving violators.)

The special role of media, interpersonal communication, and direct on site enforcement relatedinformation to drivers is depicted in Figure 3.1 by the 3D box on the left side. Informationserves to amplify individual or local impacts (deterrence) of all enforcement functions in thechain. This is why the provision of information to drivers and all road users is considered hereas a “horizontal institution” in the enforcement chain, helping to increase compliance withtraffic law.

3.4.2 Traffic Law Enforcement Chain The more complex reality

The Recommendation on Enforcement added two important elements to the basic model of theenforcement chain, with emphasis on the four target priority areas of speed, drinkdriving, seatbelt, and crossborder violations.

The first element is the necessity of having a detailed and spelled out National TrafficEnforcement Plan, addressing each of the priority areas and the methods of accomplishing eachof the functions in the enforcement chain. It is expected that the National Enforcement Planwill be derived from a NRSP.

The second element is the necessity to quantitatively assess the progress of enforcement effortsalong the chain, and evaluate the impact of enforcement actions on compliance and on safety.For that purpose, the Recommendation suggested (in the Annex) a long list of variables thatneed to be monitored by police agencies.

At a conceptual schematic level, the model of the enforcement chain superimposed with aplanning and evaluation functions is straight forward enough. However, when the practicaloperational implications of reporting on a National Enforcement Plan and on enforcementperformance indicators (as the Recommendation on Enforcement is asking) are considered,within and across countries, the notion of one single, relatively uniform, enforcement chain for


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each country is clearly not accurate. A country may have more than one traffic police force,more than one enforcement plan, a number of coexisting legal systems, or many semiautonomous police districts with different traffic policing strategies and tactics, and separatedatabases that vary in the nature and scope of their contents. Differences among countries areeven larger.

Table 3.5 presents the status of TLE in EU countries, with respect to selected attributes that arerelevant to the implementation of EC Recommendation on Enforcement:

w The structure of Traffic Police forces and the extent of autonomy they havew The existence and duration of a national TLE planw Are local TLE plans determined by a national plan?w The legal status of traffic law in a country – criminal or administrative;w Are there databases and collecting mechanisms for Enforcement Performance

Indicators that are suggested by the EC, particularly regarding speeding, drinkdrivingand belt use (EC Recommendation, Annex).

Table 3.5. Selected attributes of TLE systems in EU countries

CountryNumber andorganization ofpartly autonomouspolice agencies

Central TLEPlan

WhatdeterminesLocal TLE plan

Legal status ofTraffic law

EC type data onspeed, drink driving& belt enforcement.Coordination Point(CP)

Latvia Admin. unless injuryinvolved

Lithuania Traffic police hasabout 500 officers

Yes NRSP, localtraffic safetycommissions,local wisdom

Fully administrative No CP

CzechRepublic

National, 80districts, 330 local

Yes, prioritiesand principles

Local wisdomand HeadQuarters (HQ)plan

Administrative,unless injury involved

Limited dataNo CP

Poland Admin., unless injuryinvolved

Hungary Administrative,unless injury involved

Cyprus Cyprus TrafficPolice

Yes, annualtacticaloperation plan

Local wisdomand HQ plan

Fully Criminal Limited dataNo CP

Greece Fully Criminal exceptparking

Spain National Police(Guardia Civil deTráfico) LocalPolice, Autonomouspolice Regions(Basque andCatalonia)

Yes, yearly National TLEplan adapted tolocal needs

Administrative unlessinjury or seriousviolation

Observatory, behaviorindicators.Observatory will beCP

Italy Mixed, shifting tomore criminal


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Central TLEPlan




Netherlands Mostly administrativewith list of exceptions

Austria Traffic police, ninefederal states,Capital city, & local

No Local wisdomand NRSPpriorities

Administrative,unless injury involved

Limited data. No CP

UK Fully criminal Fair amount of Localdata. No EU CP. CPfor all local police

Ireland Fully criminal

Belgium Federal Police(motorways),Flanders, Wallonia,Brussels, 26 subzones, 196 local


Local wisdomand NRSPpriorities;Regions developown plans

Fully Criminal Limited data. No CP

Denmark NationalCommissioner,Copenhagen,Police, 54 districtsand subdistricts,100+ Local Policebodies.


NRSP priorities,HQ policy andLocal wisdom

Mixed, depending onseverity of violation

Limited data. No CP

Sweden 21. National PoliceBoard (NBP) is thecentraladministrative andsupervisoryauthority of thepolice service. It isheaded by theNational PoliceCommissioner, whois appointed by theGovernment

Yes. TheSwedish PoliceRoad SafetyPolicy (February2007)

Mixed

Switzerland There are more than50 independenttraffic policeauthorities

No. Cantons,and local mayhave own plans

Local wisdomand NRSPpriorities backedup by incentives

Mixed. Legalframework is Federal(Traffic Law, 2005).But details Cantonspecific.

Limited data. No EUCP. CP for all localpolice

Bulgaria Central “NationalPolice Service”

No Local wisdom Administrative unlessinjury involved

Very limited data. NoCP

Germany Federal, 16 states,hundreds districts

No. SomeStates have

Local wisdomand HQ policy

Mixed, depending onseverity of violation

Limited data. No CPyet

Estonia Centralized Nationalpolice

Yes, yearly andtrimonthly,

HQ plan andlocal adaptation

Criminal Very limited data. NoCP

Finland National TrafficPolice, fiveProvincialcommands, 90 localdistricts, Traffic unitsin large cities,border police,customs police

Yes, Triyearly,& yearly actionplan

National Plandominant factor;local details

Criminal,administrativeexceptions: parking,overload, few others

Partially. No CP,


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Central TLEPlan




France 3 agencies:Gendarmerienational (Ministry ofDefence); Policenational (ministry ofInterior), Policemunicipal

Yes, yearly National Plandominant factor

AdministrativeExceptions: injury,serious violation,driving without validlicense

Observatory Partially.No CP, Crossbordercoordination pointsCCPD

3.4.3 Organization of traffic Police forces

Even though TLE police forces are hierarchical military like organizations, with well definedcommand lines and duty to obey higher level commands, it does not necessarily mean that allpolice districts (or subunits) are required to operate in exactly the same way. Localcommanders might have quite a bit of formal or informal level of autonomy in planning theirtactical operations and sometimes even in the way they allocate their resources to differentfunctions.

Many countries have more than one police force and more than one Traffic police force, eachorganized in somewhat different manner, responsible for different or overlapping areas, andunder the control of different government ministries. It is always the case with Federalcountries. Multiple police forces means that there may be separate communications networks,separate management and operation databases, separate accounting and so on.

This situation means that in order to find out exactly what traffic police in a country hasplanned in a given period, what it has actually done, what it has accomplished, how has itimpacted on traffic behavior and on safety, it may be necessary to collect information fromseveral police bodies and figure out how to combine it at a national level.

Some countries have a National Police Force that is organized in territorial districts under acommon organizational structure and command chain. Each district and subdistricts isresponsible for all policing functions in its territory, including traffic control. At HQ levelsthere is a professional branch for Traffic control operations, which provides the policy,guidelines, training, etc. for performing Traffic policing, but is not typically involved in thedaily operations.

Because of the special demands of Traffic Control, most National Police Forces provide forspecialized traffic units in large cities, units which are under the direct command of the localterritorial police district. At any time they might be called on to perform various policing tasksother than direct traffic law enforcement.

Another common response to the need for continuous TLE on busy interurban roads was theestablishment of some form of a National Traffic Police force, which is under the directcommand of the Traffic Branch of Police HQ. A National Traffic Police force is dedicated todo traffic control on the major national roadway network. The force may have its own sub


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units, facilities and communication network, but it also operates in coordination andcooperation with each general police districts that contains its roads.

Finland is an example of such police structure. The national police force is organized aroundfive provincial commands and 90 local districts. In additions there is border police andCustoms police for the border areas. The National Traffic Police is under direct command ofpolice HQ and is operating in whole country. It has subunits in the provincial commands. Itsmain responsibility is to do traffic policing on the major motorways and other non urbanroads. It has other special tasks as well, such as protecting the president. In Urban areas, thenational local district of the general police do also traffic work, and in large cities the localpolice has specialized units for traffic policing. National Traffic Police has its own TLE plansset by it's commander and planners. These plans are based on the government's resolution onsafety and the National Police strategy.

Essentially similar structure exists in Denmark. The police in Denmark, the Faroe Islands andGreenland constitute one National force, under the control of the Minister for Justice. Thepolice command line consists of National Police Commissioner, the commissioner of theCopenhagen Police and the chief constables of 12 police districts and 42 sub districts. Inaddition, there are about 100 Local Police Authorities or Community Police. (There used to beover 200 authorities but in recent years reorganization plan reduced the number to about 100).In addition, there is a National Traffic Police to patrol the interurban roads.

In several countries there are administratively separate police forces for, roughly, urban andrural areas. The rural police (Gendarmerie or Civil Guard) is patrolling mainly on inter urbanroads, but is also responsible to traffic (and other aspects of police work) in small villages /communities along the roads, that do not have their own local police. In the urban areas there isa different force, with a central command and branches in each large city. Some countries have,in addition to the urban and rural police forces also a National Traffic Police dedicated totraffic control and other policing task (e.g. crime prevention) on the most major part of the roadnetwork.

France provides an example of the above type of system, but even more intricate. It has twomain police forces and each of them performs traffic policing, both as a general task and withspecialized units. France also has several smaller police entities:

w Gendarmerie Nationale (under the control of Ministry of Defense)w Police Nationale (Ministry of Interior)w Police municipale, in urban areas and garde champetre in rural communities

The Gendarmerie is responsible for all policing in interurban areas thus also covering about95% of the road network. The departmentlevel gendarmes are grouped into near 100territorial units and specialized road police units. The mobile gendarmes can be called in asreinforcements for the departmentlevel gendarmes and carry out some traffic police duties.The aerial gendarme, with several helicopters, take part in traffic monitoring along with theother units (speed and tailgating monitoring). In recent years near 15% of the Gendarmerie’sactivity was considered Traffic Policing.


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The Police Nationale, is the urban police, in 473 of the larger cities. The force is just a littlesmaller than the Gendarmerie. In the bigger cities the Police Nationale has traffic units withvehicles and motorcycles. In Paris and some big metropolitan areas, there are bodies called“préfecture de police” that are in charge of all local road safety policies, traffic control, andadministration of vehicle and driving licenses.

Police Municipale and Police Rurale are under the control of local government and havelimited law enforcement powers outside of local traffic issues and local ordinance enforcement,but there may be a trend to relegate more traffic control issues to the local authorities. With thenew systems of automatic speed or Red Light enforcement, with outsourced maintenance, alocal force can take responsibility for the operation of such systems. The potential sharing inthe revenues is one incentive for the trend.

Smaller Police agencies with other main missions participate, when called upon, also in trafficpolicing. They include State security police (CRS), Border police, Customs. There is a specialcentral body (Department of public liberties and legal affairs) that administers the demeritpoint system and manages the resulting penalties and suspensions. (It should be noted that theorganizational structure of French police agencies, especially with respect to traffic operations,is currently undergoing changes, and the above description may require updating.)

Also in Spain general Local Police are in charge of law enforcement, including TLE, in urbanareas. Collectively, they are the largest police. The “Guardia Civil” are in charge of lawenforcement in rural areas and on the national road network and on minor roads outside urbanareas. It has a branch dedicated to traffic policing (Guardia Civil de Tráfico). Then there is theBasque police and the Catalonia police who are in charge in those regions. The Traffic GeneralDirectorate manages traffic control centers and coordinates overall traffic management of the“Guardia Civil de Trafico”.

Many countries have smaller police forces, under the control of various (other than interior orjustice) ministries, which may be patrolling the roads for their own purposes. Their functionsmay overlap in part, with those of the regular traffic police force. Examples include militarypolice that focus on military vehicles, Ministry of Transport Police who focus on vehicle taxevasion or other transport regulations, Customs Police and Border Police who focus on crossborder traffic, Green police who focus on polluting vehicles, Ministry of Labor Police whofocus on commercial drivers.

Police Forces dealing with Traffic can be different in many ways organizations, commandstructure, range of territory and responsibilities, composition of personnel, training, equipmentand other characteristics. These forces have to coordinate their communication networks,command and control channels, yearly plans and daily operations. This complexity has obviouspractical implications for implementing the EC Recommendations on Enforcement andcollecting the data requested by it. It may be more difficult than perhaps expected.

3.4.4 TLE plans at national and local levels

While TLE is a significant component in most NRSPs, not many countries reported having aNational Traffic Law Enforcement strategy and plans derived from the National Road Safety


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Plan and perhaps being in some way innovative and commensurate with the ambitious visionand safety targets contained in most NRSPs.

In countries with national (centralized) police force, the ministry responsible for Police,together with Police Headquarters, will usually prepare an annual workplan for each branch ofthe police, including traffic police. Such plan serves as a guideline for more specific plans bypolice subunits (typically geographic police districts and Local Police in urban communities).

In Spain, for example, the national traffic police (Guardia Civil de Tráfico) follow theguidelines of the National TLE plan, but the national TLE strategy is further adapted by eachof the autonomous regions and by Local Police forces. The forces define their own TLE actionplans in order to resolve the specific safety problems in their territories.

In Finland, the National TLE plan is a 3 or 4 year strategy document, linked to thegovernment's NRSP, which is a parliamentary resolution and binding. The strategy emphasizesthe following points:

w It is part of national safety strategy

w Enforcement must be is systematic and planned

w TLE must be targeted to behaviors known to contribute to severe accidents

w The focus areas are: speeding, drinkdriving, seat belts and other safety devices, heavyvehicles, high risk drivers

w Need for cooperation between National Traffic Police and Local Police

w Need for cooperation with other authorities (e.g. Road Administration, vehicleregistrations, Tax authorities)

Specific actions listed in the last plan include:

w Strengthening automatic enforcement methods (including testing “section control” ofspeeding, automatic Number Plate Reading, Weigh In Motion)

w Testing new methods of alcohol and drug detecting devices

w Intensified surveillance of heavyvehicle traffic (speeding, rest periods, overloading,securing cargo)

In addition, Traffic Police together with other authorities formulate an annual operation planwhich coordinates country wide enforcement actions, such as seat belt campaigns, winterdriving, pedestrian safety and reflector use campaigns, and other intensive efforts that involvemass media and work with other authorities and volunteers. The strategy plans do not go intopolice deployment plans and enforcement tactics, topics that are covered by routine operationsguidelines and decided by district chiefs.

In the Czech Republic a National Enforcement Plan, which describes the general actions forthe following year, is prepared annually by police HQ. The enforcement plan takes intoaccount the priorities set by the National Road Safety Strategy. Accordingly, the last planfocuses on speeding, drink –driving and belt use. These priorities are then considered by 80


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District Police Commanders, in drawing up their local enforcement directives. However, theNational Enforcement Plan does not go into the details of tactical deployment of police forcesand methods. It includes a general request to monitor roads fatalities, speeding and “aggressivedriving” and concentrate enforcement there. It remains for each police district to plan the actualdeployment of their police units and equipment to the best of their knowledge of localproblems and needs.

Estonia provides an example of a country with a National TLE plan that applies to local levelas well and goes into deployment issues and not only general principles. It is perhaps a specialcase due to its small size and radical changes in police status and structure.

The Ministry of Interior is responsible for the police. A separate Traffic Police force wasphased out in 2000 and road policing became the responsibility of every policeman. In August2003, during the start of the new NRSP, a special Traffic Enforcement Unit was establishedwithin the police to coordinate alcohol and speed enforcement. In 2004, a new TrafficDepartment was set up with the goal of increasing traffic policing on the roads. These newmoves were well supported by public opinion.

A national enforcement plan is planned by the Ministry of Interior. There are two planningperiods: one year and three month period. The priorities set cover the road, traffic managementand signs, technical condition of the vehicles, road traffic and participants, passenger andgoods; public events and planned statewide operations. The National TLE plan requires thatup to 50% of work time of traffic police personnel must be spent in active enforcement, andthat speed control should amount to at least 20% of the total work time.

The Belgian National Safety Plan contains a chapter on traffic law enforcement, whichspecifies one major goal: increasing the subjective chance of being caught for a traffic lawviolation. It also identifies areas of emphasis (“attention points”) for enforcement speeding,drinkdriving, seat belt use and few others. In order to receive additional funding from theFederal Road Safety Fund, a police unit (regional or local) needs to provide the Fund an actionplan relating to these “attention points”.

In the Federal countries (e.g. DE, CH), as well as in other countries with somewhat decentralized police systems (e.g. NL, UK, SE. PL, CZ, DK) the organizational structure ofpolicing is such that each state, region or police district is autonomous to some degree anddevelops its own daily, yearly or multi year traffic policing operations and sometimes evenbudgeting plans.

For example, in Germany the Federal Government developed (through its federal roadresearch institute, BASt) a National Enforcement Plan in line with the EC Recommendation. Ithas an advisory status, as the responsibility for traffic law enforcement is at Länder (states)level. Some states draw new TLE plans with reference to the Federal TLE Plan, othersdisregarded it.

In all countries, federal and centralized, with different degrees of autonomy to police agencies,there are several coordination mechanisms among police forces, commands, districtswhatever the case may be. Some mechanisms are very formalized (for example APCO


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Association of Chief Police Officers, in the United Kingdom). The coordination is regarding allaspects of policing, including traffic policing. In the United Kingdom, APCO produces policydocuments, training materials, evaluation studies, conferences for TLE personnel and otheractivities for the benefit of all 25 police forces in the UK. It maintains a National PolicingImprovement Agency, and participates in government advisory bodies such as PACTS(Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety).

Also in Switzerland, police authorities have formal and informal coordination and cooperation mechanisms, and share a core of similar policies and practices. The Canton Chiefs ofPolice established a working group that deals with Traffic Policing and Road Safety issues. Inrecent years all Cantons increased drink driving enforcement (helped by a new Federalrandom breath testing legislation) and automated speed enforcement, increased the number andfrequency of traffic controls, improved the processing of sanctions, and faced a decrease inmanpower resources dedicated to traffic policing.

Similar mechanisms work in Denmark. The Road Safety Commission, with participants frommany stakeholders, produced the NRSP. The Traffic Department of the NationalCommissioner’s Office produces and annual TLE operations plan based, in part, on thepriorities in the NRSP. This could be considered a National Traffic Law Enforcement Plan.Police districts are invited to participate in these operations (usually time limited topicalenforcement and media campaigns), but many police districts make their own plans as well.

However, in all countries, the actual mix of enforcement methods and daily tacticaldeployment of traffic police personnel and equipment remains at the discretion of each district(here used generically to refer to all types of local police entities). Police Chiefs in charge oftraffic operation in local districts will generate their own “paper plan” and daily operationsdirectives. They believe (perhaps rightly so) that they know best the population, roadway andtraffic characteristics in their territory.

For example, Danish district chiefs planning of speed enforcement operations are not based onan inventory of specific stretches of roads. However, a selection of stretches is made, basedupon criteria such as known dangerous roads and roads where speeding regularly occurs; alsomotorways are specifically targeted.

As Table 3.5 shows, in all countries, irrespective of the organizational structure of governmentor Traffic Police forces, the details of local Traffic Policing were not determined at the Top, bya National Plan, but primarily by “local wisdom” that “took in account” the suggestions orguidelines of a National or police HQ policy or plan. Thus the local districts apply the generalprinciples and guidelines to their territory and identify the safety issues specific to their driversand roads. Subsequently they design, what they believe, to be the best or optimal mix of TLEfor their specific territory, given the many practical constraints they have.

There are no hard data on how different TLE plans are (or their actual implementation)between districts in the same country or region. However, causal observations and testimonialssuggest that there are actual differences in the way TLE is practiced in police districts (localcommunities or other geographical jurisdictions) that otherwise appear to be similar in theirtransport and traffic attributes. This is true for both centralized police systems and for federal


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or decentralized systems, but perhaps more so for the decentralized type of policeorganizations within a country.

It should be pointed out that Traffic Police often does not have responsibility or control over allaspects in the enforcement chain legislation, driving licenses, vehicle registrations, tracingnonpayment of fines, point system administration, courts – all of which are central to thesanctioning process, its efficiency and ultimate effectiveness. Police involved in traffic policingusually work according to plans; it is less clear if, and how, other agencies, such as courts, plantheir activities or if they have objectives, targets and performance indicators.

3.4.5 The legal status of traffic law in a country – criminal or administrative

Legal systems of Traffic Law are complex entities, and each EU country has its own uniquesystem, which is adapted to its structure of government, civil, social and legal institutions.Some countries maintain a Criminal Traffic Law system regarding violations of the trafficlaws. An equal number of countries handle most traffic violations in an administrative legalsystem that is different from the criminal court system. It does not involve litigation andprosecution, has simpler procedures, different evidential rules, may results only in fines andvarious restrictions but not in loss of freedom.

In practice, there are no purely criminal traffic law systems or purely administrative ones. Mostare mixed. In an otherwise administrative system of traffic law, injury accidents or serioustraffic violations (as specified in the code) are considered a matter for criminal law.Conversely, in criminal traffic law systems there are exceptions that are consideredadministrative infractions and handled completely outside of the criminal system. Parkingviolations or various technical violations are sometimes like that.

A comparison of the countries with criminal traffic law with those having primarily anadministrative system, suggests that the nature of the legal system is not a determining factor inthe level of road safety in the country. The Netherlands has an administrative system and isamong the best performing countries in road safety, but so is the United Kingdom with acriminal traffic law system. Estonia has a criminal traffic law system, Hungary has anadministrative one and both have a long way to improve their safety situation.

Without going into moral arguments or into purely legal considerations, it appears that withineach primary legal system, TLE officials did find legal / practical solutions to handleenforcement practices they really wanted to adopt. For example, Ireland with a criminal lawsystem that is purported to disallow Random Breath Testing, but faced with a serious drinkdriving problem, recently passed a law that enables Traffic Police to require mandatory breathtest of any driver even if not suspected on drink driving. Thus, even if drink driving is not atarget of explicit primary enforcement (such as in planned random breath tests), Irish Trafficpolice administer many breath tests as part of so called secondary enforcement every driverstopped for any other violation or checking is also required to take a breath test.

Another example concerns vehicle owner responsibility for an automatically detected andrecorded speed (or other) violations. This is a simple matter in an administrative legal system,


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where there is no crime to be attached to the driver of the car speeding. The owner is requiredto pay the fine and that is it.

In Denmark and Norway this is not possible, since speeding is a criminal offence and driverneeds to be identified and summoned to court; this puts a high burden on police (or recently onother agencies) and hinders wide application of completely automated speed enforcement.Court summons in other, minor, traffic violations do not usually pose a big problem because ofthe “invention” of fixed fines. When drivers pay a fine they, by default, admits to the crime.

However, in the United Kingdom and many other countries with criminal systems, TLEofficials decided that running massive automatic speed enforcement, as a preventive measure,is more important than making a criminal investigation to identify who the speeding driver wasand “bring her to justice”. Therefore they came up with a legal solution that retains the criminalstatus of the offence, but does not require the police to look for the driver. The vehicle owner ismade legally responsible for the violation unless he applies to the prosecutor, names the driverof the vehicle and the driver confirms it. This way the automatic enforcement system can mailthe vehicle’s owner a citation and a fine payment form, which the majority of owners will payrather than go to court.

Recently, France adopted owner responsibility by shifting speeding offences on motorwayswith automatic detection systems to the administrative traffic law sector; Finland, on the otherhand has started the process of legislation to allow owner responsibility within the criminalsystem, as in the United Kingdom.

3.4.6 Availability of data required by EC and Enforcement Coordination Point

The Annex of the EC Recommendation on Enforcement, gives a long list of rather detailedinformation elements about TLE in a country, which each member state is being asked toreport to the commission and share some of it with other countries. The information can beclassified into three major categories:

w Description (quantitative, when relevant) of the structure of the enforcement chain andin subsequent reports of changes in the chain (such as new legislation, new detectiontools);

w Generic description of TLE action plans in the three focus areas of speed control, drinkdriving and seat belt usage. The plans include deployment information such as number(and length?) of road sections destined to be speed checked and the frequency, timesand duration of the checks;

w Data about the actual implementation of the plans, including deployment data, the waysthe public was informed about the ongoing enforcement activities, the outcomes of thetargeted enforcement (speed checking, drink driving checking, and belt use) in termsof check results, number of citations, the involvement of outof state drivers, how werethe citations processed through the follow up systems of police, courts, demerit pointadministration etc.


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The first category of information about the enforcement chain should be available to allcountries, but based on the experience of this and previous projects it is not a simple task todefine what is relevant to report because the “enforcement chains” are very complex and arenot uniform across countries. It is hard to tell what is a useful level of detail, what to do aboutfederal states, autonomous regions, conditional dependencies in how violations are treated andprocessed and much more.

Regarding TLE plans, there are only limited data that can presently be supplied by TLEagencies in all countries. The enforcement plans that are available are very generic, mainlygeneral principles that do not distinguish one period from another. Some countries with acentral National Traffic Police dedicated to interurban roads, could provide information aboutplanned traffic policing on the main roads, regarding speeding, drink– driving enforcement (ifbased on RBT) or seat belt campaigns. Information about planned traffic operations in urbanareas, even if existing, is scattered in hundred of locations and is not very accessible.

Data about actual implementation of traffic policing, are especially scarce, and certainly not upto the detail listed in the Recommendation Annex. Countries with traffic data Observatoriescan provide some behavioral indicators, such as speed distributions on some roads, rates ofsafetybelt use. Where RBTs are carried out, drink driving rates could be estimated. Accidentdata are available in all countries.

Some countries can supply data on total number of violations recorded by police, sometimesalso by type, but not much about the processing and follow up of the citations through theadministrative and criminal processes. At present, no country can provide reliable national dataon actual deployment of police enforcement, especially not in urban areas.

In WP2 and WP4 of the present project many of the data elements mentioned in the Annex canbe mapped into Enforcement Performance Indicators and Safety Performance Indicators. Alsoin that work it was found that at the present there are no data available to represent many of theindicators. In WP4 it is also suggested that for the purpose of monitoring TLE impact onbehavior and evaluating Safety, perhaps smaller number of traffic behavior indicators areneeded, based on data that can be collected by an observatory, and less dependent onadministrative data about TLE operations.

Another issue is who in a country will take on the very sizable administrative burden requiredto collect and organize the information requested in the Recommendation Annex. It wouldseem that a police agency would have the better access to such data, especially the informationabout police operations, violation records, and accident data. However, data about theprocessing of violations and sanctions through the legal and administrative system, if available,may reside with other government agencies. Similarly, data about compliance in the driverpopulation (such as true prevalence, on various roads and various conditions, of speeding,drinkdriving or nonuse of belts) are not universally collected and if they are it is usually notby police.


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3.4.7 Designated “enforcement Coordination Point” (CP)

According to the received responses, no country has a single designated office in charge ofenforcement activities communication

Regarding exchange of information among EU countries about cross border traffic violations,there are many bilateral and multi lateral agreements, especially between countries sharingborders.

For example, France has crossborder coordination points called “CCPD” (centres decoordination police douanes), run by police officers, gendarmes and customs officers linked toBelgium, Luxemburg, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. With some of these countries Francehas bilateral agreements to collect fines from violators from another country. Automatic speedenforcement system allows the prosecution of violators from foreign countries, by passing theviolation file electronically to the foreign administration.

However, the specific terms of bilateral cross border TLE agreements vary among countriesand they are limited to reciprocal tracing of violators and collection of traffic fines. No countryallows another access to its registries, and until recently all communication and negotiationabout cross border violations was manual on a case by case basis. Now there are alsoexchanges of electronic data sets of cross border cases. More information about currentsituation and future prospects regarding cross border traffic law enforcement is reported inReport D3 (approaches and implications of new technologies for European crossborder trafficenforcement) of WP3 of the PEPPER project.


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4 FOLLOWUP OF OFFENCES: DEMERIT POINT SYSTEMSAND REHABILITATION PROGRAMS

In this section an overview of Member States having a Demerit Point System is presented withspecific focus on the inclusion of the three offences: Speeding, drinkdriving and restraint use.

Further, information is given regarding rehabilitation schemes or programs within the threeareas as the EC recommendations calls attention to the fact that in some cases remedialmeasures can be appropriate, alongside or instead of a sanction, e.g. in cases where anindividual has a persistent drink problem.

4.1 Demerit Point Systems (DPS)

During the last years, DPS have been introduced in more and more Member States, but invarious designs.

Table 4.1 gives an overview of the application of DPS in the countries.

Table 4.1. The application of Demerit Point Systems in the countries.

Country Demerit PointSystem Organization keeping the Demerit Point System The three focus

offences included

Latvia Yes Road Traffic Safety Directorate (RTSD) SpeedingDrinkdrivingRestraint use

Lithuania Yes Ministry of public order – Police Speeding

Slovakia No

CzechRepublic

Yes Municipalities with the extended authority of stategovernment – municipality where offender’s drivinglicense is registered

SpeedingDrinkdrivingRestraint use

Poland Yes Ministry of Public Order – Police SpeedingDrinkdrivingRestraint use

Hungary Yes Ministry of Public Order Police SpeedingDrinkdrivingRestraint use

Cyprus Yes Police SpeedingRestraint use

Greece Yes Police: only for mopedsMinistry of Transportation: for the rest of vehiclecategories


Spain Yes – Introducedon July, 2006

Ministry of Interior (DIRECCIÓN GENERAL DETRÁFICO)


Italy Yes Ministry of Transport: All licenses are gathered in thatMinistry, and also the register of the lost points isthere.

Speeding, incl. minorspeeding violationsDrinkdrivingRestraint use


21/08/2008 48 Final

Country Demerit PointSystem Organization keeping the Demerit Point System The three focus

offences included

Netherlands Not in general –Only for youngdrivers

Ministry of Justice For young drivers:SpeedingDrinkdrivingRestraint use

Austria Yes Ministry of Transport Drinkdriving.Restraint use only forchildren

UK Yes Other SpeedingDrinkdriving

Ireland Yes Ministry of Transport SpeedingSeat belt use

Belgium No

Denmark Yes Ministry of Public Order Police The NationalCommissioners Office

SpeedingDrinkdriving

Sweden No

Switzerland No

Latvia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands include all3 offences, but in the Netherlands the system accounts only for young drivers.

Except for Austria speeding offences are included in all the countries with DPS.

Cyprus and Ireland do not include drinkdriving, while United Kingdom, Denmark and Austriado not include restraint use. However, in Austria DPS includes non restraint use for children. InGreece DPS has been established in the early 80’s, but due to lack of resources the system hasbeen underoperating. Recently it has been decided to outsource the operation. The system isexpected to fully operate in a computerized way in June 2007.

In the countries with no DPS (Slovakia, Belgium, Sweden and Switzerland) previous offencesare considered in relation to actual offences regarding the three types of violations. In Swedenthis at least applies to drink driving. In Switzerland previous offences are taken in account ifthey have been entered in the register of convictions or the register of administrative measures.A speed offence is recorded if the speed limit has been exceeded by 16 km/h or more on urbanroads, by 21 km/h or more on rural roads, by 26 km/h or more on Motorways. A drinkdrivingoffence is always recorded in the registers, while lack of restraint use is not recorded in aregister.

In Belgium, theoretically, previous offences have an influence on the outcome of the newoffence. However, in practice, repeat offenders will not be recognized as long as they have notbeen caught and fined in the same district. The problem of recidivism has been recognized asone of the attention points for future TLE. Regarding restraint use no recidivism is taken intoaccount.


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4.2 Rehabilitation programs

The concept “rehabilitation schemes/programs” has been defined very broadly by the countriesresponding to the questionnaire. Some have reported lectures or training programs/driverimprovement courses, but it is doubtful whether they can be perceived as rehabilitation. Thisdepends to a great degree on the content, which is not always clear.

Table 4.2 presents an overview of the programs as they are stated by the countries.

Table 4.2. Overview of rehabilitation schemes/programs in the participating countries

Country Speeding Drinkdriving Restraint use Description

Latvia

Lithuania No Yes Yes

Slovakia No No No

CzechRepublic No No No

If license is suspended driversjust go to driving school to passthe exam again

Poland Yes Yes Yes Training reduction in penaltypoints

Hungary

Cyprus Yes Lectures

Greece No No No

Spain Yes Yes Yes

Italy Possibility to attend informativecourses, without need todemonstrate any improvement.

Netherlands Yes

Austria No Yes No

Driver improvement for offences1,2 ‰ or higher. Trafficpsychological assessment foroffences 1,6 0/00 or higher

UK Yes Yes Yes Driver improvement and speedawareness courses

Ireland No No No

Belgium Yes Yes No Improvement courses

Denmark No Yes No Rehabilitation programs

Sweden No Yes No A collaborative project inStockholm

Switzerland Yes Yes No Traffic lessons

11 of the countries report to have programs of one kind or another, but they seem most oftenjust to be traffic lessons or improvement courses. The programs/courses can be voluntary orobligatory, and the quality of the effects is unknown.


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United Kingdom has both ‘driver improvement’ and ‘speed awareness’ courses. The driverpays to attend and can get a reduction on any period of suspension. Drinkdriving is treatedmore as a potential ‘alcohol/alcoholism’ problem. Repeat offenders can attend a course and be“approved” by their doctor.

In Belgium driver improvement courses exist in the legal framework of “alternativepunishments”. If a registered offence is brought to court, the prosecutor/judge can proposethese courses to the offender in order to minimize the other sentences (fine, jail sentence,license withdrawal). If this is accepted the offender is followed by a probation officer during aperiod between one and five years. Because referral depends on judges, not every offender hasthe same possibility to benefit from these courses. Driver improvement courses can beproposed to all offenders. There is no selection based on psychological or educationalprinciples. Thus, the system does not take into account drivers with problems that cannot behelped within such courses. More strict definitions of rehabilitation programs, such as moretherapeutic interventions, are not implemented in driver improvement courses for two reasons.In general, offenders with an alcohol problem can be referred to the regular healthcare. Thiscan also be on a mandatory basis by a judge as a probation condition. In particular, at thismoment traffic law in Belgium has no concern with rehabilitation programs.

In Denmark all drivers stopped with a BAC > 0.5 g/l must participate in a course of 4 x 2 ½hours at their own expense (270 Euro). Apart from that drinkdrivers may – as an alternative toan unconditional sentence – be given a suspended sentence, on the assumption that they enterinto alcoholic treatment.

In Sweden the program SMADIT (Joint Action against Alcohol and Drugs in Traffic is run inStockholm County. It is a collaborative project involving Swedish Road Administration, thePolice Authority and the Swedish Prison and Probation Service.

In Poland all drivers can take training, which will reduce the number of penalty points by 6;they must pay for the training though. A driver can take the training once every six months, soin practice they can reduce the number of their penalty points by 12 in a year. This does notapply to novice drivers though (their limit is 20 penalty points). The training is a lecturediscussing the causes of road accidents, legal and social effects of accidents and psychologicalaspects of driver behavior. It consists of about 6 six hours and is increasingly often criticizedfor its ineffectiveness. New regulations on driver training and exams plan to replace thelectures with reeducation classes. It is difficult to say, however, when that would take effect.

In Cyprus lectures can be given to drivers that have collected 7 demerit points. In this case 2points maybe erased. It is a voluntary scheme today, but will become compulsory with newlegislation.

In Czech Republic drivers, whose driving license is suspended, can obtain the license again iffulfilling all legal requirements equal to all driver license applicants. There are no specialrehabilitation schemes.


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5 TLE PROCEDURE FOR THE THREE SELECTED TRAFFICLAW VIOLATIONS

In this section focus will be on the TLE procedure after a violation has taken place within eachof the three focus areas: Speed, drinkdriving and restrain use.

Focus will mainly be on the follow up of violations recommended by EC, i.e.:

w The sanctions of violations should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive

w The sanctions should be more severe in the case of repeated serious violationscommitted by the same offender

w The sanctions should include the possibility of suspension or withdrawal of the drivinglicense and of immobilization of the vehicle for serious violations

Finally information about the existence of data collection within each area will be illuminated.

It should be mentioned that there is a great variation in sanctions in the participating countriesas well as there is a great variation in the degree of details in the information reported.However, although some information is missing from a Member State it does not necessarilymean that the topic in question does not exist – it may be that it just has not been reported.

5.1 Traffic Law Enforcement procedures after speeding

This section concerns speed limits, manual as well as automatic enforcement, procedures afterspeeding violations and data collection in the countries.

5.1.1 Speed Limits

With respect to planning of speed enforcement EC recommends that the Member Statesidentify roads, where noncompliance of the speed limit occurs regularly and where this bringsabout an increased risk of accidents.

Below the speed limits (km/h) for passenger cars are examined for the 18 countries for whichdata have been collected. In annex 1 speed limits for motorcycles >125 cc and lorries > 3,5tons are presented.

According to the information collected speed enforcement is carried out on all road categoriesin all the 18 countries.

The table below has been supplemented with information on speed limits from the rest of theEU countries, based on data from the European Commission (2006). It should be noted thatthis publication use another classification of road categories, for which reason speed limits onhighways/other roads are not fulfilled in these occasions.


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Table 5.1. Speed limits per road category

Country Speed Limit (km/h) per Road Category

Motorway Highway Other Urban

Latvia 90 90 90 50

Lithuania 100110 110130 7090 50

Slovakia 130 130 90 60

Czech Republic 130 130 90 50

Poland 130 110 90 50/60

Hungary 130 110 90 50

Cyprus 100 80 80 50

Greece 130 110 90 50

Spain 120 100 90 50

Italy 130150 90110 50(70, main roads)

Netherlands 100 120 /100 80/60/30 50

Austria 130 100 50

UK 112 96 112(dual carriage road

48 or 32

Ireland 120 100 60 50

Belgium 120 90 50

Denmark 130 80 90 50

Sweden 110 (100) 70 50

Switzerland 120 100 80 50

Bulgaria 120 50

Germany No limit 100 100(outside urban

areas)

50

Estonia 110 50

Finland 100120 50

France 110130 50

Luxemburg 130 50

Malta 40

Portugal 120 50

Slovenia 130 50

Rumania 120 50

The speed limits vary between the countries, especially for motorways and highways. Onmotorways, there is no speed limit in Germany. Apart from that the highest speed limit of 150km/h is recorded in Italy on some occasions only. The most common speed limit on Europeanmotorways is 130 km/h, recorded in eleven countries. A more conservative speed limit of 120


21/08/2008 53 Final

km/h can be found on motorways in seven countries, while the lower speed limits onmotorways ranging from 90 km/h to 110 km/h are recorded in 8 countries. In Cyprus, a “lowestspeed allowed on motorways” limit has been reported which is 65 km/h.

On highways, the most common range of speed limits is between 100 km/h and 110 km/h.Four other countries have speed limits between 80 km/h and 90 km/h, while Slovakia andCzech Republic have the same speed limit of 130 km/h as on motorways.

On urban roads, the majority of the countries have a general speed limit of 50 km/h, with theexception of Slovakia, where the speed limit is 60 km/h, and Malta, where the speed limit is 40km/h.

On other road categories, the speed limit is in the range of 90 km/h to 80 km/h for mostcountries with the exception of Ireland with a speed limit of 60 km/h.

An inappropriate effect of the differences in speed limits between the countries could be thatdrivers do not respect the speed limits in their own country, as they can see that other countriessometimes have higher speed limits on the same kind of roads. Moreover, the changes in speedlimits when one travel across the countries may be confusing.

5.1.2 Motorcycles and heavy trucks

The big motorcycles (engine > 125cc) have the same speed limits as the passenger cars in thecountries for which data is available.

For heavy trucks > 3,5 tons, the speed limit is generally lower than that for passenger cars by10 km/h to 50 km/h. On motorways, the prevailing speed limit for heavy trucks is 80 km/h asrecorded in 13 countries. Spain and Belgium have the higher speed limit of 90 km/h, while inGreece the speed limit has been increased by 5 km/h from 80 km/h to 85 km/h in June 2007.

On highways and other roads the prevailing generic speed limit is 80 km/h and it is lowered inPoland, Spain, Italy, Sweden and Denmark to 70 km/h, while the lowest speed limit is recordedin Cyprus 65 km/h.

On urban roads the speed limit is the same as that for passenger cars, 50 km/h.

5.1.3 Automated speed registrations

In the following several procedures regarding automated speed regulations are described forthe countries. Each of these items is asked for in the EC Recommendations.

5.1.4 Percentage of speed violation registrations by automated equipment

EC recommends a combination of automated and traditional speed enforcement, as this isknown to be best practice.

The percentage of speed violation registrations by automated equipment is demonstrated forthe 8 countries who responded on this topic in table 5.2 below.


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Table 5.2. Percentage of speed violation registrations by automated equipment

Country Manual or Automatic Speed Violation Registration

Austria Automated registrations: 70%, Manual registrations: 30%

Cyprus Automated registrations: In 6 months, 57.000 violations over 14.000.000 traffic volume i.e.0,41% Reference: Cyprus Traffic Police

Czech Republic The speed enforcement is carried out by various bodies (Traffic Units of Police of the CRand Municipal Police Forces) and there are no centrally registered data from MunicipalPolice that uses fixed cameras more often.

Latvia Manual registrations: 100%

Lithuania Automatic registration 20%, manual registration 80%

Poland Automated registrations: 13 %, Manual registrations: 87 %

UK Automated registrations: around 95% nationally, Manual registrations: 5%

Sweden Automatic registration 3%, Manual registration 97% (manual includes the old camerasystem (wet film camera)

Latvia presents 100% manual registrations and in the Czech Republic it is mainly theMunicipal Police that uses fixed cameras more often but relative data are not availablecentrally.

The distribution of automated and manual registrations in the other 4 countries varies a lot.

In Cyprus the use of automatic speed limit violation registrations is recently used to anincreasing extent.

In Lithuania only 2 fixed cameras were installed on main roads.

In Sweden there is no automatic control on motorways.

5.1.5 Treatment of automated registrations through the TLE chain

One important question that is raised by EC is whether automated and manual registrations ofspeeding are followed up in a similar way through the rest of the TLE chain. This matter isenlightened for 8 countries in table 5.3.


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Table 5.3. Treatment of automated and manual speed violation registrations

Country Automated and manual registrations of speed driving violations followed up in thesame way through the rest of the TLE chain

Lithauania Yes

Czech Republic Yes

Poland Yes

Cyprus No

Greece Yes

Austria Yes

UK No speed cameras are more or less automated with a fixed penalty letter being sent toregistered keeper. You can appeal via a court hearing. Speed violations brought by trafficpolice go through the courts/magistrate.

Switzerland Yes

In 6 out of 8 countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Greece, Poland and Switzerland,the automated registrations of speed limit violations are treated in the same way as the manualregistrations of the violation. This means that the capacities of the existing technology toautomate and speed up the following steps in the TLE chain are not exploited and the benefitsof automated registration are only limited to the first part of the chain.

In Cyprus automated registrations of speed driving violations are not treated in the same waythrough the rest of the TLE chain as manual registrations. A manual process is in applicationtoday which will become automated in the near future.

In the United Kingdom a more or less automated method is used with a fixed penalty letterbeing sent to the registered vehicle owner. You can appeal via a court hearing. Speed violationsbrought by traffic police go through the courts/magistrate.

5.1.6 Procedure following the automated violation registration

In the table below it is stated if the automated violation registration is followed by a manual orautomated procedure in 9 countries.


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Table 5.4. Manual or automated procedure following automated registration

Country Manual or automated procedure following the automated registration

Lithuania Manual process only

Czech Republic Manual process only

Poland Manual process only

Cyprus

Manual process only: It will become automated in the near future. A violating car isphotographed and stored in the Traffic Police files. The plate number is recognized andthe owner is prosecuted. If the owner was not the driver he must declare who the driverwas, in order to be fined and sanctioned. No photograph is send to the house of theoffender, but only the ticket for payment of the fine. In case of refusing to pay the fine,and questioning of the violation, the picture showing the vehicle, the driver, the violationinformation and date and time will be presented to the court as evidence.

Greece Manual process only

AustriaMixed manual and automated process: Data collection manual from the radar boxes, ortransferred automatically (section control, sanctioning partly automatically), but controlledby human.

UKFully automated: Automatic number plate recognition is used – but with certainalgorithms to check integrity (e.g. no Q’s – only O’s). Some have manual checking andmanual enhancement for things like dirty plates.

Sweden Mixed manual and automated process

Switzerland

Mixed manual and automated: Most of the automated violation registrations have amanual procedure. The part which is more and more automated is the recognition of thenumber plate. But even then, a manual control is carried out. A 10% error rate of theautomated number plate recognition system has been estimated by police officers.

Most of the countries still use manual process only. Cyprus, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Greeceand Poland fall into this category.

Austria, Sweden and Switzerland have a mixed manual and automated process in application.In Switzerland the part which is more and more automated is the recognition of the numberplate. But even then, a manual control is carried out.

In the United Kingdom a fully automated process is in application.

5.1.7 Legal responsibility following an automated speed limit violationregistration

Table 5.5 shows the legal responsibility in the follow up of a speed violation registration in 8countries.


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Table 5.5. Legal responsibility in the follow up of a speed violation registration

Country Legal Responsibility following an automated speed limit violation registration.

Lithuania The owner and the driver indicated by the owner

Czech Republic The owner or the driver indicated by the owner: The law enables the owner to persist,that he was not driving when the offence was registered, and in the same time to revealthe identity of the driver. Many drivers registered by some violation are abusing this point– estimates of police officers responsible for the enforcement data processing andanalysis are about 2030% of all speed limit violators registered by the automatedsystems.

Poland The driver

Cyprus The owner or the driver indicated by the owner

Austria The owner or the driver indicated by the owner

UK The owner or the driver indicated by the owner: It is the registered owner (ie name onvehicle logbook). The ticket is sent to him/her (to pass on if you were not driver – if youdon’t name someone else you are responsible). If it is a company car the companywould be the owner and would pass it on.

Sweden The driver

Switzerland The owner or the driver indicated by the owner

In 6 of the countries, the legal responsibility for a speed limit violation registered by automatedmethod lies with the owner of the vehicle or with the driver indicated by the owner. This maygive the opportunity to owner of the vehicle to seek way to avoid punishment in case he/she isalready in a risk to have his/her driving license sustained due to previous registered traffic lawviolations. In the Czech Republic, Police officers estimate abuse of the law to a 2030% of allspeed limit violators registered by the automated systems.

In Poland and Sweden the driver has the legal responsibility following the registration of aspeed limit violation through automated methods. It is not clear how the identity of the driver isensured through automated methods of registration. This may result in ineffective use ofautomated methods of registrations such as speed cameras.

5.1.8 Coherence between seriousness of violations and sanctions

EC recommends as a general policy that violations are followed up with effective andproportionate sanctions and not with only a warning.

Moreover sanctions should be more severe in the case of repeated serious violations committedby the same offender and sanctions should include the possibility of suspension or withdrawalof the driving license and of immobilization of the vehicle for serious violations.

The type of followup procedures as well as the level of sanctions for speed limit violationsproportional to the gravity of the offence is presented in Annex I table 2 for 16 countries.

The procedures and sanctions vary between the countries, but the level of sanctions is more orless proportionate to the gravity of the offence. This is the case in countries that have criminalor administrative type of sanctions for Traffic Law violations and applies both to the monetary


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fines as well as to the demerit points and duration of driving license suspension or vehicleimmobilization time period.

However, regarding Cyprus, the rate of the fine is not found proportionate to the risk involvedat very high speeds.

In most of the countries the sanction of speed violation is mixed and the procedure can beadministrative or criminal depending on the severity and the impact of the violation.

The Czech Republic, Latvia and Lithuania report a fully administrative procedure for speedviolations.

In Belgium speed limit violation is always a criminal offence, and depending on the severity ofthe offence, different prosecution methods can follow. For speed violations between 1 and 20km/h, only a fine is given. If the fines are not paid, the violator must come to court.

In Cyprus too speed limit violation is a criminal offence. But the offender will go to the courtonly if he refuses to pay the fine or if the speed limit is violated by more than 50 km/h.Otherwise, paying the fine is considered an extrajudicial settlement.

Typically the countries have a fully administrative procedure unless the offence is connectedwith an accident, injury or death, in which case the prosecution becomes criminal: Italy, Spain,Ireland, Austria, Cyprus, Poland and Slovakia report that the procedure is mixed, depending onthe type and severity of the offence.

In the United Kingdom all camera recorded speed violations are treated through administrativeprocedure. But if the violation is registered by Police radar or if the violator is involved in anaccident he/she may be prosecuted as a dangerous driver and be sent to the court.

In the Netherlands the procedure is mixed as regards to the motorways: up to 30 km over thelimit follows the administrative procedure, excess of 30 km over the limit is subject to criminalprosecution. For roads with lower speed limits the treatment is similar but the ranges of theexcess speed are calculated as percentages of the speed limit.

In Denmark the procedure is mixed. When a violation is detected, the owner of the car receivesa fine by mail. If the owner accepts the fine, the procedure is fully administrative. In case ofnonacceptance by the owner, the case may go to court.

Sweden has only reported administrative sanctions.

In Greece, according to the Driving Code revision recently applied (2nd of June 2007), most ofthe driving offences including speed limit violation have been decriminalized in order toremove excess burden from the courts. For speed violations over 30 km/h or speeding over 150km/h on motorways, suspense of driving license or removal of the vehicle plates andimmobilization of the vehicle for a period of time will be applied simultaneously to theregistration of the violation.


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5.1.9 License suspension and immobilization of the vehicle

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Denmark, Italy, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerlandreports to have the possibility of withdrawing the driving license in relation to large exceedingor recidivism.

Moreover, in Switzerland one will get custodial sentence in relation to large exceeding.

Immobilization of the vehicle is not reported in any of the countries in relation to speedviolations.

5.1.10 Follow – Up of offences

The table below shows estimated mean time for a speed violation prosecution to come to Courtfor 8 countries with criminal procedures.

Table 5.6. Estimated mean time for a speed violation prosecution to come to Court

Country Mean time for a speed violation prosecution to come to Court

Poland 23 months.

Cyprus 6 months.

Netherlands 1 month on average. The policy is to keep the time as short as possible. This doesnot always work.

UK 24 months. Very varied. For police prosecutions will depend on location and time ofyear. If it is an appeal against a camera about the same.

Ireland 12 months.

Belgium In general 2 to 3 months

Denmark 3 to 6 months.

Switzerland Mean: 4 months; median: 3 months (2005)

The question is not applicable to countries that treat speed limit violations with administrativeprocedures only. This is the case in Czech Republic, Greece (after the 2nd of June 2007),Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia. Input on this question is not available from Hungary, Italy,Spain and Sweden.

In the Netherlands the fastest mean time for a speed violation prosecution to come to the Courtis 1 month from the violation time. In Belgium, Poland and the U.K. there are relatively shorttime periods of 2 to 4 months for a speed violation prosecution to come to the court.

In Denmark it is 3 to 6 months and in Cyprus 6 months which is a rather long time period.

In Ireland it is 12 months, which is considered a long time period for a speed violationprosecution to come to the court.


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5.1.11 Availability of information useful for the European Commission

EC recommends that the Member States provide the Commission with information concerningspeeding violations, sanctions, Court decisions, changes in the rules of drinkdriving andviolations by foreign drivers.

The table below shows countries collecting statistics or information of the kind required in theEC Recommendations.

Table 5.7. Data collected in the countries.

Automaticspeed

enforcementequipment

Violationsstatistics

Sanctionstatistics

Speedenforcementprocedures

Courtdecisionsstatistics

Changes inthe rules on

speeding

Statistics on speedviolations by

foreign vehiclesand drivers

Lithuania Yes Yes Yes No Yes No

Slovakia Yes Yes Yes No No No

CzechRepublic

Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Poland Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Hungary Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Cyprus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Greece No Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Spain Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No

NetherLands

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Austria Yes Yes Yes No No No

UK Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Ireland No No No No No No No

Belgium Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Denmark Yes Yes Yes

Sweden Yes

Switzerland Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Information requested by EC Recommendations regarding speed limit violations is beingcollected today by the majority of the countries, which provided information for this survey.Only Ireland reports total lack of relevant data collection. Denmark, Italy and Latvia have notprovided information on this question.

Statistics on Traffic Law violations by foreign vehicles and drivers is the least covered area.Only Czech Republic and Hungary collect this kind of information.


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Court decisions and statistics is the second least covered area in information collection.Lithuania, Austria, Czech Republic, Greece, Ireland, Slovakia and Spain report no collection ofthis kind of information.

Information on speed enforcement procedures is not collected by Austria, Ireland and Slovakia.

Sanction statistics are not collected by Austria and Ireland and automatic speed enforcementequipment information is not collected by Greece and Ireland.

In most of the countries that provided input to this question, Police or Traffic Police is theprincipal organization collecting data requested by the EC, see Annex I, table 3. Otherorganizations that can be mentioned are: Federal Ministry of the Interior in Austria, JusticeDepartment in Belgium, DGT in Spain, SFSO in Switzerland and DfT in the U.K.

It is of special interest to mention the “National Public Prosecutor for Traffic” and the “CentralFine Collection Agency” in Netherlands, which definitely are important factors for thedistinguished successful application of TLE chain in the Netherlands.

5.2 Information of the enforcement chain in the field of drinkdriving

5.2.1 Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) limits

BAC limits in the Member States are not harmonized. In table 5.8 the BAC limits in the 18participating countries has been supplemented with information on BAC limits in the rest ofthe EU countries, based on data from the European Commission (2006).

Table 5.8. Existing Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) limit in the countries

Country BAC limit

Latvia 0,5 g/l.0,2 g/l for new drivers

Lithuania 0,4

Slovakia 0.0 g/l

Czech Republic 0,0 g/l

Poland 0,2 g/l

Hungary 0,5 g/l

Cyprus 0,5 g/l

Greece0,5 g/l0.2 g/l for new drivers (owning a license for less than 4 years or less than24 years of age) and professional drivers

Spain 0.5 g/l0.3 g/l for professional and novice drivers

Italy 0.5 g/l

Netherlands 0,5 g/l0,2 g/l for new drivers (owning a license for less then 5 years)


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Country BAC limit

Austria 0,5 g/l< 0.1 g/l for new drivers and category C drivers

UK 0,8 g/l

Ireland 0,8 g/l

Belgium 0,5 g/l

Denmark 0,5 g/l

Sweden 0,2 g/l

Switzerland 0,5 g/l

Estonia 0,2 g/l

France 0,5 g/l

Luxemburg 0,8 g/l

Malta 0,8 g/l

Portugal 0,5 g/l

Slovenia 0,5 g/l

Finland 0,5 g/l

Bulgaria 0,5 g/l

Rumania 0,0 g/l

The most common BAC limit is 0.5 g/l. The highest BAC limits are 0.8 g/l, found in 4countries. The lowest BAC limits 0.0 g/l are found in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, andRumania, while Poland, Estonia and Sweden have 0.2 g/l.

The Netherlands, Greece, Spain, Latvia and Austria all have lower BAC limits for new drivers.

5.2.2 Enforcement

There is no information from Cyprus and Italy. For most of the other countries enforcement ofdrinkdriving is carried out on all kinds of roads. In Greece and United Kingdom enforcementin principle should be carried out everywhere too, but in reality different circumstances are inforce:

w In Greece in practice more attention is given on urban roads and in times and places wherepeople tend to drive after drinking.

w In United Kingdom, breath testing are not allowed in general, only if the driver is stoppedrandomly to check for other targets and the police then becomes suspicious of drinkdriving. This means that relatively little drinkdriving enforcement is done on motorways –except if the driver is initially stopped for speeding. I.e. enforcement is done mainly onlower speed roads and during ‘drinking hours’.


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5.2.3 Random and evidential breath testing methods and requirements for legalprosecution

The Commission states that best practices with respect to drinkdriving are the application ofrandom breath testing with alcohol screening devices and the use of evidential breath testdevices. Random breath testing is providing the highest level of drinkdriving checks, becausethe police do not need to have a suspicion of drinkdriving to be allowed to take a test. Thismeans that the risk of being caught in drinkdriving is much bigger in countries where randombreath testing is allowed, and thus random breath testing have a more preventive effective, thanif a suspicion is needed. If evidential breath testing devices are allowed to be used along theroadside, the enforcement of drinkdriving is even more preventive and effective.

Random breath testing may be systematic in the sense that they focus on times and placeswhere drinking drivers are likely to be found. This is still a random procedure, because it is notbased on individual driver characteristics (ETSC, 2006). In Sweden, the Netherlands, Estoniaand Denmark the police also test for alcohol, when drivers are stopped for whatever reason.

The table below gives an overview of random breath testing and use of testing devices in theparticipating countries.

Table 5.9. Overview of random breath testing and use of testing devices.

Country Systematic(targeted) RBT

RBT in normaltraffic

enforcement

Specified requirements for legal prosecution

Latvia Yes Yes Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Lithuania Yes Yes Alcohol screening devicesBlood testing devices

Slovakia Yes Yes Alcoholmeters

CzechRepublic

Yes Yes Blood testing devices

Poland Yes Yes Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Hungary Yes Yes Alcohol screening devicesAlcoholmetersBlood testing devices

Cyprus Yes Alcohol screening devices Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices (Only exceptionally due tomedical reasons.)

Greece Yes Yes Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices (Used in cases ofinvolvement in fatal accidents)

Spain Yes Yes Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices (The blood test is only doneif the driver ask for it)

Italy Yes

Netherlands Yes Alcohol screening devices


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Austria Yes Yes AlcoholmetersComments: Alternative screening devices only forindication

UK No Yes Alcohol screening devices Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Ireland No Yes Alcohol screening devices Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Belgium Yes Yes Alcohol screening devices Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Denmark Yes Yes AlcoholmetersBlood testing devices

Sweden Yes Yes Alcohol screening devices Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Switzerland Yes Yes Alcoholmeters Blood testing devices

Almost all the countries carry out random breath testing methods in systematic surveillances ofdrinkdriving as well as a part of the normal traffic enforcement. Thus the recommendationsfrom EC are followed to a high degree in the countries as regards random breath testing.

Exceptions are United Kingdom and Ireland, where systematic breath testing is not allowed. InUnited Kingdom, police can stop drivers randomly as part of the normal traffic enforcement tocheck the vehicle and then ask everyone for breathtest (Digital readout roadside breath testingequipment can now be used as evidence.) Thus, breath tests are practiced as a so calledsecondary enforcement.

In Ireland a limited form of random breath testing was introduced in August 2006. Where aPolice Inspector or a higher ranked person signs an authorization for particular locations and atspecific times, police officers can test drivers without having to form an opinion about whetheran intoxicant has been consumed.

Regarding alcohol measuring method and equipment necessary to provide evidence for legalprosecution the methods most often used are alcoholmeters and blood testing devices, whileevidential breath testing appears not to have been admitted to a high degree yet.

Alcohol screening devices are applied in 8 out of the 18 countries: Lithuania, Hungary, Cyprus,the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, United Kingdom and Sweden.

5.2.4 Coherence between seriousness of violation and sanctions

As with speed, EC recommends as a general policy that drinkdriving violations are followedup with effective and proportionate sanctions and not with only a warning.


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Moreover sanctions should be more severe in the case of repeated serious violations committedby the same offender and sanctions should include the possibility of suspension or withdrawalof the driving license and of immobilization of the vehicle for serious violations.

Administrative and criminal sanctions and the seriousness of the sanctions are presented inAnnex II, table 1.

There are great variations in the sanctions for drinkdriving offences in the different countries.

In most of the countries the sanctions for drinkdriving are combined administrative andcriminal. Poland states that the traffic law is administrative, because it does not containsanctions. Drivers are penalized under the criminal law, which describe sanctions for offencesin the traffic law. Thus, in some way one can say it is mixed. In the Netherlands all sanctionsare administrative.

In all cases the sanctions reflect the seriousness of the offend, starting often with administrativefines and in some cases demerit points and, with more serious offences, growing to criminalsanctions with increased fines, suspension of license and in some countries evenimmobilization of vehicle and some kind of imprisonment.

However, fines are often combined with license suspension and imprisonment of differentcharacter, which makes it difficult to evaluate which countries have the lowest and highestsanctions as a whole.

In almost all the countries the driving license can be suspended for drinkdriving for a shorteror longer period depending of the seriousness of the offence.

In Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Sweden the sanctions are a combination of fines andlicense suspension even though the BAC limits are low. Specifically the sanctions in Polandare very severe: If BAC > 0.2 sanctions can be penalty points, detention, possibleimmobilization of vehicle, suspension of driving license.

In Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland and Sweden, drinkdriving is followed by criminal procedure only.In United Kingdom, where the BAC limit is high (0.8 g/l), the sanction of drinkdriving overthe limit is a fine and a loss of license for year (high limit and high penalty).

Some countries Austria, Italy and Latvia have specific rules for new drivers. In Sweden, norules are directly related to young drivers. However, specific rules regarding young offendersare set out in the Swedish act on special provisions. Austria has specific rules for foreignbeginner drivers and vehicle category C as well.

Finally, in United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland and DK sanctions are moresevere in the case of repeated serious violations committed by the same offender.


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5.2.5 Followup of offences

Another question of interest for the Commission is how long it takes for the entire procedureincluding execution of sanction. The mean time for a violation prosecution to come to Court ispresented in the table below for 6 of the countries.

Table 5.10. Mean time for a drink drive violation to come to Court

Country Mean time for a violation prosecutionto come to Court

Poland 3 5 months

Cyprus next day or as soon as possible

UK 12 months

Ireland 6 months

Denmark 34 months

Switzerland 4 months

If the case has to go to court e.g. because the driver caused a serious accident with personsinjured or killed the procedure varies mostly between 1 – 6 months. The length of the periodmay depend on e.g. the seriousness of the violation as well as the strain of the Court.


EC recommends that the Member States provide the Commission with information concerningdrinkdriving violations, sanctions, Court decisions, changes in the rules of drinkdriving andviolations by foreign drivers.

The table below shows countries collecting statistics or information of the kind required in theEC Recommendations.


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Table 5.11. Data collected in the countries.

Random andevidential

breathtesting

Violationstatistics

SanctionStatistics

CourtdecisionStatistics

Changesin the ruleson drinkdriving

Statistics on drinkdriving violations byforeign vehicles and

Drivers

Otherinformation


Slovakia No Yes Yes No No No

CzechRepublic

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Poland Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Hungary Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Cyprus Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Greece Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Spain Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Netherlands No Yes Yes Yes Yes

Austria Yes Yes No No

UK Yes Yes Yes Yes

Ireland No No No No No No No

Belgium Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Denmark Yes Yes Yes Yes

Sweden Yes Yes Yes Yes

Switzerland Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

16 of the 18 countries report on this matter. In Ireland no such information is collected at all.

Most of the countries collect data concerning random breath testing and changes in the rules ofdrinkdriving, as well as they make statistics concerning violations and sanctions in the drinkdriving area.

Regarding violations committed by foreign vehicles or drivers, this is the least covered area fordrinkdriving, as well as it was for speeding. Only about half of the countries have reported onthis matter and from these countries only 3: Czech Republic, Hungary and the Netherlandscollect data.

In the same way – as regarding speed court decision statistics are also the second leastcovered area in information collection.

In general, data concerning random and evidential breath testing are collected by the police,while violation and sanction statistics are mostly collected either by the police or withinanother field of a Ministry. In the Netherlands, sanction statistics are taken care of by thepublic prosecutor. The organizations responsible for the data collection are presented in AnnexII, table 3.


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Regarding Court decision statistics as well as changes in rules they are generally collected byMinistry’s or the police, and some times it is the same organization taking care of violation,sanction and Court statistics and rule changes.

In United Kingdom, violation, sanctions and court decision statistics are published annually,while Belgium reports that in general the level of detail and the availability of information forpublic use are very uncertain.

5.3 Enforcement of restraint use

Restraint use is of great importance for traffic safety. In the following the rules, sanctions anddata collection regarding seat belt use is presented for the participating countries.

5.3.1 Obligatory restraint use

The table below shows the existing rules and legal responsibilities regarding non use ofrestraints.

Table 5.12. Rules and legal responsibilities regarding non use of restraints.

Country Restraint use obligatoryfor all persons Exceptions Responsibility for non use of

restraints

Latvia Yes Both the driver and thepassenger

Lithuania Yes Yes – handicapped persons Both the driver and thepassenger

Slovakia Not for children; in verynear future newlegislation will beintroduced and restraintuse will be obligatory forall persons

Yes police, army, taxi drivers,teachers in driving schools,postmen, driver when turning orreversing

Both the driver and thepassenger

CzechRepublic

Yes Yes Police, army, taxis,teachers in driving schools,driver when reversing, EMSvehicles, persons with medicalcertificate

Both driver and passenger

Poland Yes Yes there could be a doctor’swritten recommendation not touse a seat belt


Hungary Yes

Cyprus Yes Yes, for medical reasons Both the driver and thepassenger (or the escort in caseof young passengers)


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Country Restraint use obligatoryfor all persons Exceptions Responsibility for non use of

restraints

Greece Yes Yes – ”public use” vehicledrivers, drivers of vehicles withfrequent stops, medical cases,pregnant women, persons below1,5 m tall

The passenger (or the escort incase of young passengers)

Spain Yes Yes only in urban areas: Taxidrivers, emergency vehicles,driving instructors, freightdistributors loading frequently,and disabled people withappropriate medical certificate

Both driver and passenger –The responsible is always whodoes not use it

Italy Yes Yes emergency vehicles,security service staffs, taxi,medical reasons , pregnantwomen

Both driver and passenger

Netherlands Yes. Children restraintseats has to be approvedalso; if not , it ispunishable by law as well

Both driver and passenger arepunishable by law, meaning thata driver is issued a ticket, but aticket is also issued to apassenger not wearing his/herseat belt

Austria Yes Yes – rural areas with no publictraffic; when there is only slightrisk; If a person is too bulky;patrol cars, taxi drivers


UK Yes Yes –disabled /pregnantpersons


Ireland Yes Yesdriving instructors andtester; If medical evidence isprovided; Garda of DefenseForce (on duty)


Belgium Yes Yestaxi, emergency vehicles,medical reasons

Both driver and passenger Unless the passenger isyounger than 16 years, then thedriver is responsible.

Denmark Yes Yes some groups (e.g. somehandicapped drivers and certainoccupations) are exempted fromthe rules


Sweden Yes Yes. Not compulsory when thevehicle is not moving, when it isbacking, when riding within aparking place/gas station orsimilar, when medical reason


Switzerland Yes Yes, medical reasons, driverswith frequently stops and lowspeed, emergency vehicles,handicap transport vehicles

The passenger (or the escort incase of young passengers)


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EU legislation (Directive 91/671/EEC) requires that all occupants of passenger cars and lightvans use seat belts. Children under 12 years of age have to be restrained by an approvedrestraint system suitable for the child's height and weight

Most of the countries report exceptions from the obligatory restraint use. These are typicallydrivers of vehicles with specific functions, such as taxi’s, bus drivers, emergency vehicles ordrivers medical reasons.

In Greece, from the 2nd of June 2007 seat belt use has become compulsory for every vehiclethat is equipped with safety zones including trucks.

The Czech Republic reports some specific exceptions from the rules for the families with morechildren, but most of the exceptions will be removed the 1st of May 2008.

In all the countries the responsibility for non restraint use lies on the driver and the passengers.Only Belgium, Cyprus and Greece mention the responsibility for child passengers not wearingseat belts, and in these countries – as presumably in all the EU countries – the responsibilitylies on the driver or the escort of the young passenger.

5.3.2 Sanctions

Because of the serious consequences of non restraint use EC recommends that violation arefollowed up with effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions and not with only warnings.

Table 5.13 shows the sanctions and following up of nonrestraint use.

Table 5.13. Sanctions and following up of nonrestraint use

Country Consistent and repeatedenforcement

Criminal prosecutionor adm. Procedure Sanctions

Lithuania No Fully Administrative

Latvia Fully Administrative Fine 4 Euro and for driver additional 1penalty point

Slovakia Yes Fully Administrative Fine up to 2000 SK (59 EUR)

CzechRepublic Fully Administrative 2 demerit points; penalty 5080 €;

penalty 65 € on spot.

Poland Yes Fully Administrative 100 PLN (=25€), demerit points

Hungary Fully administrative Fines + 1 penalty point

Cyprus

Yes. 3 different months areplanned for consistentenforcement of restraint use in2007, in accordance withrespective Pan European andTISPOL Campaigns.

Mixed 50 CYP or court plus 2 demerit points

Greece Yes Usually in coordinationwith Pan European programs. Mixed

€ 156 * € 350 New fine after the 2nd

of June 2007, plus 3 demerit points,plus 10 days suspension of drivinglicense.


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Country Consistent and repeatedenforcement

Criminal prosecutionor adm. Procedure Sanctions

Spain Yes Administrative

150 €. Discount of 30% of fine if thepayment is done on the 30 daysfollowing the notification. Penaltypoints

Italy Administrative

Altering or hampering its normalworking: 3482 Euro; Loss of 3 pointsin driving license. No use of seatbelt:68275 Euro, loss of 5 points inthe driving license

Netherlands Yes Administrative Fines, penalty points for young drivers

AustriaYes Every control of a carincludes the control of therestraint use.

Mixed in case of acollision where a child isinjured due toinsufficient securing

Administrative: 2172 Euro, Penaltyfor not having secured children:Withdrawal of driving license for 3months. Responsible adults face a5.000 EUR fine.

UK Yes It is fully enforced all thetime Fully Administrative

34721 Euro; 289 EURO for children;Suspension of the license in repeatedoffences (2003)

Ireland No Mixed

Criminal: Using a vehicle without seatbelts fitted: 4 points if taken to court, 2points otherwise. Driving without seatbelt (front/back UNDER 17 YEARSages) 4 points if taken to court, 2otherwise

Belgium No Criminal

First fine: € 50. If not paid: €60551375€ if fine isn’t paid and casecomes to court. Same offencerepeated 3 times in the last year:Driving license can be suspended for8 days to 5 years

DenmarkYes Every control of a carincludes the control of therestraint use.

Fully AdministrativeFine: € 67. Non restraint use forpassengers below 15 years issanctioned with penalty points

Sweden No. 12 weeks 23 times in ayear Mixed From 1.10.2006: €160 . For children

<15 years : €268

Switzerland No Fully Administrative

Administrative: €40. for each person.In case of young passenger withoutchildren restraint system, €40. fordriver)

Only half of the 18 countries reports having consistent and repeated enforcement of restraintuse. In Denmark and Austria drivers are also checked for restraint use in ordinary controls orby suspicion of other offences.

In most cases the followup procedure of restraint use violation is fully administrative. InBelgium it is only criminal, while in Cyprus, Greece, Austria, Ireland and Sweden it is mixedadministrative and criminal.


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In Greece the driver may choose to pay half the fine within 10 days and avoid the criminalprosecution. Moreover, it is expected that restraint use violation will be decriminalized afterthe 2nd June 2007.

The sanctions for not wearing a seat belt are always a fine, and in 8 countries also a loss ofdemerit points (See also section 4).

In Austria, United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden fines are extra high when driving withchildren not wearing seat belts.

In Greece, Austria, Belgium and United Kingdom there is also a possibility of suspension ofdriving license for a shorter or longer period.

Thus, the sanction for non restraint use varies a lot in the countries, but in most cases fines arecombined with at least penalty points. The mildest sanctions seem to be in Slovakia,Switzerland and Sweden with fine as the only sanction, and the Netherlands and Denmark,where the demerit point system only counts in certain occasions.


To identify how effectively the EC recommendations are being implemented each MemberState should collect information in these matters. The information should be sent to theCommission and exchanged between the Member States.

In the table below is presented the different kinds of data collection in each country.

Table 5.14. Data collection in each country

Extent ofenforcement

actions

Violationstatistics

Sanctionstatistics

Courtdecisionstatistics

Changes inrules of

restraint use

Statistics on TrafficLaw violations by

foreign vehicles anddrivers


Slovakia Yes Yes Yes No No

CzechRepublic Yes Yes Yes No court

decisions Yes

Poland Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Hungary Yes Yes

Cyprus Yes Yes Yes Yes

Greece Yes Yes Yes No Yes

Spain Yes Yes Yes No Yes No

Netherlands Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Austria No Yes No No

UKNot as

separatetype

Yes Probably not

Ireland No No No No No


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Extent ofenforcement

actions

Violationstatistics

Sanctionstatistics

Courtdecisionstatistics

Changes inrules of

restraint use

Statistics on TrafficLaw violations by

foreign vehicles anddrivers

Belgium Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No

Denmark Yes Yes No No

Sweden Yes Yes Yes

Switzerland No No No Notapplicable Yes No

Ireland has no data collection regarding restraint use.

Of the remaining countries, 11 collect data of intensive enforcement actions. Violation andsanction statistics are collected by 13 respectively 10 of the countries. Changes in rules ofrestraint use are being collected by 9 countries.

In the lower end of data collection appears Court decisions these are only collected forstatistics in 4 countries – Poland, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Belgium.

The poorest case regards statistics on traffic law violations by foreign vehicles and drivers – inthis case only Czech Republic reports data collection. This is the case for data collectionregarding speeding and drinkdriving too.

In general, data regarding intensive enforcement actions on restraint use are collected by thepolice, while other kinds of data collection vary more between the police and other authoritiesas responsible organizations. The responsible organizations for data collection regarding seatbelt use are presented in Annex III table 1.


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6 CROSS BORDER ENFORCEMENTThe EC recommend effective sanctioning in relation to serious and/or repeated violationscommitted by foreign drivers. Thus, there should be a mechanism for cross borderenforcement. The violations should be reported to the authorities in the Member State in whichthe vehicle is registered.

Table 6.1 shows, whether it is possible to apply the complete TLE chain to vehicles or driversregistered in foreign Member States. More specifically it refers to the notification to theviolator, prosecution, adjudication, sanctioning, fine collection and rehabilitation that followthe registration of the violation.

Table 6.1. Cross border enforcement on speeding, drinkdriving and non restraint use

Country Speed Drinkdriving Restraint use

Lithuania No No No

Slovakia No, but there are some limitedsanctions.

No, but there are some limitedsanctions

No, but there are somelimited sanctions

CzechRepublic

Only collecting fines. Problemswith collecting fines exist.

Only collecting fines. Problemswith collecting fines exists

Only collecting fines.Problems with collectingfines exists

Poland Yes Yes Yes

Cyprus

In most cases nothing will happen.It is possible to collect fines. Casewill only go to Court if it is a verysevere violation

Cases go to Courtimmediately. No

Greece No. Tickets may be issued butfines may never be collected.

No. Tickets may be issued butfines may never be collected.

No. Tickets may beissued but fines maynever be collected.

Spain

Noif the driver is notified by thepolice, he has to make a moneydeposit and may be prohibited todrive in Spain during 1 – 3 months

It is only possible to apply theLaw until the fine collection orappeals: drivers have to makethe money deposit.

It is not possible to applythe enforcement chain

Italy Unknown; it depends on theadministration

Austria There is a bilateral agreement withGermany No No

UK

No for speed cameras theregistration number is the start.Identifying who to post fine towould be a problem.

No – probably not in manycases. Depends on reciprocalagreements with othercountries.

No

Ireland No No No


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Belgium

Yes The complete TLE chain canbe applied to vehicles or driversregistered in foreign MemberStates.

Yes Yes

DenmarkNo Only drivers from theScandinavian countries can beprosecuted and sanctioned

No foreign drivers can beprosecuted to some extend,and a foreign car can beimpounded until matters havebeen settled.

No

Switzerland No It is only possible withGermany according to a contract. No No

Only Belgium and Poland state that the complete TLE chain can be applied to vehicles ordrivers registered in foreign countries. This account for speeding, drinkdriving and restraintuse.

In Lithuania and Ireland the enforcement chain can not be applied, and as for Italy this isunknown – it depend of the administration.

The rest of the countries have some more limited sanction possibilities, and sanction may varydepending on the offence:

In Greece tickets may be issued in all 3 focus areas, but fines never be collected.

In Slovakia violators that refuse to pay the fine is registered in a database on boarder crossingsand they are not allowed to enter the country again, unless they pay.

In Czech Republic cross border enforcement is partly realized in the case of truck drivers, butnot in the case of personal car drivers. There are problems with collecting fines. In the newlegislation there is as well possibility to get cautions from foreign drivers. This applies tospeeding offences as well as drinkdriving and nonrestraint use.

In Cyprus foreign speed violations should be very serious to go to Court, while drinkdrivingalways goes to Court. In Cyprus a large percentage – about 30% of the violators areforeigners.

In Spain, the violator has to make a money deposit and at least regarding speed violations hemay be prohibited to drive in Spain for the next 13 months.

In United Kingdom identifying foreign speed violators detected by speed cameras may bedifficult. Foreign drivers not wearing seat belts would probably be warned/educated in firstinstance. There is no evidence to suggest foreign drivers are a problem in United Kingdom.

Some countries do however enforce, prosecute and sentence foreign drivers according tobilateral agreements that have emerged between them.


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Thus, in Denmark drivers from other Scandinavian countries can be prosecuted and sanctionedif they commit speed violations. Regarding drinkdriving foreign drivers can be prosecuted tosome extent, and a foreign car can be impounded until matters have been settled.

Switzerland has bilateral agreements with France, the Netherlands and Germany, while theNetherlands have a bilateral agreement with Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. In Austriathere is a bilateral agreement with Germany regarding speed violations.

Thus, information from 14 countries shows in general that cross border enforcement in most ofthe countries does either not exist or it is only practiced to a limited degree. Only in 3 countriesit is possible to apply the complete enforcement chain on speeding, drinkdriving and restraintuse. In at least 2 countries it is not possible at all.

It should be underlined that as such, traffic law (and other national laws) does not makeexemptions towards foreigners; when it happens anyway it is the result of guidelines andpolicies drafted by the public prosecution offices and/or by the courts. Here the costbenefitfactor is central. It does not pay off to fully apply human resources on traffic law enforcement,prosecution or sentencing when there will be no result at all and above that other problemscould easily be encountered that raise the cost and effort considerably.


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7 PUBLICITY CAMPAIGNSThe EC recommends that enhanced enforcement actions concerning the 3 kind of offences arecombined with information of the public, given as publicity campaigns with the aim of makingthe public conscious of the subject concerned.

The table below shows if publicity campaigns are accompanying enforcement actions withinthe three main areas: speed, drinkdriving and restraint use.

Table 7.1. Publicity campaigns accompanying the enforcement in relation to speed, drinkdriving andrestraint use


Latvia Yes Yes

Lithuania Yes – long term speedcampaigns are organized

Yes – long term drinkdrivingcampaigns are organized

Yes – long term restraint usecampaigns are organized

Slovakia Yes Yes Yes

CzechRepublic

(No) enforcement andcampaigns are not very wellcoordinated

(No) Enforcement andcampaigns are not very wellcoordinated

Yes enforcement andcampaigns are not very wellcoordinated

Poland Yes Yes Yes

Hungary No Yes

Cyprus Yes Yes Yes

Greece Yes Yes Yes

Spain Yes Yes Yes

Italy No Yes

Netherlands Yes Yes Yes

Austria No Yes Yes

UK Yes Yes Yes

Ireland Yes Yes Yes

Belgium Yes Yes No

Denmark Yes Yes Yes

Sweden No, not large campaigns Rarely 12 weeks 23 times in a year

Switzerland No No No

From the information collected on this topic it is not always clear, whether it addressescampaigns specifically carried out in combination with police enforcement, or if it just states, ifthe campaigns are carried out at all.

Publicity campaigns are carried out in all 3 areas in 9 of the 18 countries: Lithuania, Slovakia,Poland, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. In Greece, general orspecific Road Safety Campaigns are presented to the public rather occasional close to big


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national Holidays, focused on speeding as well as drinkdriving, restraint use and helmetwearing.

7.1 Publicity campaigns regarding enforcement of speeding

12 out of 18 countries have reported that large scale speed campaigns related to enforcementtake place.

In 5 countries large scale advertising campaigns are not combined with enforcement: Hungary,Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Czech Republic. In the latter road safety campaigns targeted atspeed driving are realized and they are one of the measures proposed by the National RoadSafety Strategy, but enforcement and the campaigns are not very well coordinated. A similarsituation occurs in Greece although it is not reported in this research.

Moreover, in Czech Republic large enforcement campaigns are accompanied withannouncements in the mass media, but mostly not in the form of regular road safety campaigns.

In Poland the campaigns are carried out according to the “Strategic Road Safety Plan” and ECRecommendations. The National Road Safety Council has conducted a large public opinionstudy coupled with an observational study on speed to prepare countrywide awarenesscampaigns. Moreover, many parties from the private sector and NGOs carry out campaignsagainst speed driving, but it seems to have very little influence on the behavior. Some of thesecampaigns have a very good creative concept, but they are not evaluated pre and post, and asthey are not combined with enforcement it is difficult to evaluate their effectiveness.

In the United Kingdom the risk of speeding receives a very considerable publicity budget. Theenforcement issue is not overplayed, since the Department has an ongoing bad press regardingspeed cameras being used to raise revenue rather than promote safety. The penalty points andloss of license part of enforcement is used. The public debate about speed cameras innewspapers, on TV/radio etc. serves as a belowtheline (free) campaign about ‘dangers’ ofenforcement.

In Belgium the Belgian Road Safety Institute BIVV/IBSR makes regular large scale, nationaladvertising campaigns where speed driving is the central theme. Throughout the year there arealso numerous smaller scale advertising campaigns related to speed driving and theBIVV/IBSR supports local initiatives by providing advertising material.

In Ireland speed advertisements are shown regularly on television and in the cinema.

In Denmark enforcement is complemented by central and local campaigns, while Swedenstates that there are no large campaigns combined with speed enforcement.

7.2 Publicity campaigns regarding drinkdriving

15 out of the 18 countries have reported that large scale drinkdriving campaigns related toenforcement take place.


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In Czech Republic and Switzerland campaigns against drinkdriving are not related toenforcement. In Czech Republic, as with speed, public campaigns targeted at drinkdriving arecarried out, and they are one of the measures proposed by the National Road Safety Strategy,but enforcement and the campaigns are not very well coordinated. Large enforcementcampaigns are accompanied with announcements in the mass media, but mostly not in the formof regular road safety campaigns.

Hungary reports that there are drinkdriving campaigns, but not by large scale.

In Austria there are TV and radio campaigns from the Minister of Traffic, and in Belgium largescale campaigns related to drinkdriving are complemented in the entire year.

In United Kingdom there is widespread publicity about drinking and driving especially atChristmas. Some of this refers to large fine and loss of license, other appeal more to theemotional level.

In the Netherlands a big campaign (BOB) has been used since 2001 to reduce drinkdriving.The campaign is a cooperative approach of the alcohol problem in traffic led by the Ministry ofTransport and in cooperation with the police and other public as well as private organizations.The role of the police is to perform alcohol control activities and provide publicity on theirfindings. These control activities can be organized on a local, regional, national or internationallevel. The role of the public prosecutor is to publicize cases brought to court and inform publicon sanctions and disqualifications. All these activities are coordinated on a national level; thecampaign is the alcohol part of a more general road safety campaign. The ministry of transporthas the overall responsibility for mass media publicity, facilitating regional activities andscientific research on the publicity campaigns (pretesting and effect monitoring).

In Denmark the enforcement is complemented by central campaigns, and specific central aswell as local campaigns are targeted at young people.

In Switzerland there is a national advertising campaign to prevent drinkdriving, but it is not anadvertising campaign for the “drinkdriving” enforcement.

In Latvia there have been campaigns with slogan “Save the friend” on special midsummer timeor on Christmas and New Year.

Sweden reports that the enforcement of drink driving is only rarely combined with largepublicity campaigns.

7.3 Publicity Campaigns regarding Restraint use

13 of the 16 countries seem to carry out large scale restrain use campaigns. However, again, itis uncertain whether the campaigns are related to enforcement or not.

The 3 countries not reporting seat belt campaigns related to enforcement are Latvia, Belgiumand Switzerland. In Belgium and Switzerland large scale advertising campaigns are carried out,but they are not regularly complemented by enforcement activities.


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In Cyprus and Greece campaigns are carried out regularly, in Cyprus 3 per year together withthe Pan European Campaigns. In United Kingdom extensive publicity for front and rear seatshave already been done over the years. United Kingdom has a new law about having correctchild restraint and by now focus is more about correct restraint for age/size of child.

In Czech Republic the Action Plan assigns very succinctly just the obligation to have oneenforcement campaign focused on restraint systems use yearly.

In Denmark and Austria increased seat belt enforcement actions linked to campaigns are heldduring the year.

In Sweden campaigns for restraint use are carried out 12 weeks 23 times a year.

All together large scale publicity campaigns are only carried out in all 3 areas (speeding, drinkdriving and nonseat belt use) in 9 of the 18 countries: Lithuania, Slovakia, Poland, Greece,Cyprus, Spain, United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark. Several of the countries carry outpublic campaigns in just one or two of the topics.

Moreover, for many of the countries it is not clear to which degree the campaigns are related toenforcement actions.


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8 CONCLUSIONSThis Deliverable presents the results of a questionnaire survey with participation from 17Member States + Switzerland. The objective was to describe the structure, function andprocesses of the enforcement chain in the Member States. Included in the objective is adescription of information gaps in each State, especially with respect to categories described inthe EC Recommendations (2004): Speeding, drink driving, restraint use and crossbordervehicles.

To make an effective planning of enforcement measures towards these categories ECrecommends that the Member States establish a national Traffic Law Enforcement Plan. Such ameasure will always in some way be related to National Road Safety Plans.

National Road Safety Plans

Almost every country in the EU (including accession countries) has published a National RoadSafety Plan with a “vision”, a “target” and a varied mix of “safety problems”. Most countrieshave accident reduction targets fairly similar to EC target of about 50% fatality reductions.Traffic Law Enforcement (TLE) is always a significant component of National Road SafetyPlans even if it is not always referred as such directly.

Most National Road Safety Plans do not specify fatality reduction targets by area of action, butnearly all EU countries have focus on speeding, drink driving and non restraint use in thestrategy for reducing road fatalities. These problem areas, or target behaviors, are mentioned inall National Road Safety Plans.

The proposed means in the National Road Safety Plans in order to improve the efficiency ofTraffic Law Enforcement in the focus areas include general reference to “intensify” policeenforcement, increased reliance on automatic speed enforcement, raising the number of alcoholtests (random or otherwise), conducting seat belt enforcement campaigns, and increasing thecoordination of police enforcement with public media campaigns. Moreover, concerns areabout increasing citation issuing by raising sanctions on the three target violations, loweringspeed limits and drink driving thresholds, and improving followup actions in the enforcementchain, such as fine collection, setting up point systems and handling of repeat violators.

Most National Road Safety Plans do not include special funding provisions for the plan, whichis not because they are not aware of the importance and need for this basis, but is simply dueto the fact that “road safety” or “traffic enforcement” is just one of many socially worthycompetitors for public funding, which is always limited. The most common way is for everyministry that takes responsibility for certain area in the Plan to include its planned actions in itsannual periodic general budget request.

Traffic Law Enforcement Plans at national and local levels

While Traffic Law Enforcement is a significant component in most National Road SafetyPlans, not many countries reported having of national Traffic Law Enforcement Strategy andplans derived from the National Road Safety Plan.


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Regarding Traffic Law Enforcement Plans, in countries with National (centralized) policeforce, the ministry responsible for Police, together with Police Headquarters, will usuallyprepare an annual workplan for each branch of the police, including traffic police. Such planserves as a guideline for more specific plans by police sub units (typically geographic policedistricts and Local Police in urban communities). However, in all countries, irrespective of theorganizational structure of Traffic Police forces, the details of local Traffic Policing were notdetermined at the top, by a National Traffic Law Enforcement Plan, but primarily by “localwisdom” that “took in account” the suggestions or guidelines of a National policy or plan.

“Traffic police” is not a uniform entity. Police forces doing traffic work vary between andwithin countries in many ways structure, organization, annual plans and daily modes ofoperation. This complexity has practical implications for implementing the ECRecommendations on Enforcement and collecting the data requested by it. It may be moredifficult than perhaps anticipated.

Enforcement activities, sanctions and follow up procedures related to speeding, drink drivingand restraint use.

Most traffic law systems in EU countries are a mix of criminal and administrative law. Acomparison of the countries with criminal traffic law with those having primarily anadministrative system, suggests that the nature of the legal system is not a determining factor inthe level of road safety in the country.

There are several kinds of sanctions, e.g. fines, withdrawal of license etc. One relatively newmeasure against traffic violation is the application of point systems. 13 countries reportedhaving Demerit Point Systems but in various designs. Only about half of the 13 countries arecovering all three offences considered.

Speeding

The speed limits vary significantly between the countries, especially for motorways andhighways. The lack of harmonization of speed limits may have the effect that drivers do notrespect the speed limits in their own country, as they can see that other countries sometimeshave higher speed limits on the same kind of roads. Moreover, the changes in speed limitswhen one travel across the countries may be confusing.

In the EC Recommendations it is stated that the best practices with respect to speeding are theuse of automated speed enforcement systems, followed up by procedures that have thenecessary capacity to cope with a large number of violations.

Thus, if the full benefit of automatic speed violation registration should be obtained theprocedure after the registration should be more effective than by manual registrations, as thetechnology has the capacity to automate and speed up the following steps in the TLE chain.This is however not the case in 6 out of 8 countries given input on this topic. For thesecountries the benefits of automated registration are then limited to only the first part of thechain.


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Moreover, in 6 out of the 8 countries the legal responsibility for a speed limit violationregistered by automatic speed control lies with the owner of the vehicle or with the driverindicated by the owner. This may cause long administrative processes trying to identify thedriver, and the process could be much more effective if the responsibility was belonging to theowner only.

Sanctions for speeding violations are followed up with fines, and most often with acombination of different kinds of sanctions, which is more effective than a single sanction.

The countries typically have a fully administrative procedure unless the offence is connectedwith an accident, injury or death, in which case the prosecution becomes criminal. 9 countriesreport to have the possibility of withdrawing the driving license in relation to large exceedingor recidivism, whereas immobilization of the vehicle does not seem to be applied.

Drink driving

The BAC limits in the countries vary from 0.0 g/l to 0.8 g/l. The lowest BAC limits appears insome of the Eastern countries. The EC Recommendation states that the best practice in thisfield is the application of random breath testing with alcohol screening devices and the use ofevidential breath test devices.

Almost all the countries carry out random breath testing methods in systematic surveillances ofdrinkdriving as well as a part of the normal traffic enforcement.

The alcohol measuring method most often used are alcoholmeters and blood testing devices,whereas evidential breath testing appears not to have been admitted to a high degree yet.

Sanctions for drinkdriving violations are – similar to speed sanctions followed up with fines,and most often with a combination of different kinds of sanctions.

In most of the 18 countries the sanctions are depending of the severity of the violation, and thisalso determines whether the followup procedures are administrative or criminal. Further,sanctions are more severe in cases of repeated violation. In almost all the countries drivinglicense can be suspended in severe cases, as well as drivers may be sentenced to prison ofimprisonment of some kind, whereas immobilization of the vehicle seems to be a more rarepossibility.

The reported mean time for a speed violation prosecution to come to court varies from 1 to 12months, while the mean time for a drinkdriving violation to go to court varies from 16months. However, these numbers are based on only information from only a few countries. Thelength of the period may depend on e.g. the seriousness of the violation as well as the strain ofthe Court.

Restraint use

In almost all the countries restraint use is in general obligatory for all persons. However,almost all of them have also exceptions from the obligatory restraint use. These are typically


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drivers of vehicles with specific functions, such as taxis, bus drivers, emergency vehicles ordriver’s with medical reasons.

While EC states that the best practice in this field is to carry out intensive enforcement actionsof a certain duration and which take place several times a year, only half of the 18 countriesreports having consistent and repeated enforcement of restraint use.

The sanctions for not wearing a seat belt vary a lot in the countries; sanction is always a fine,and in 10 countries fines are combined with at least demerit points. In 3 countries the penalty isharder, if children are not wearing seat belts, and in 3 countries there is also a possibility ofsuspension of driving license for a shorter or longer period. It is difficult to evaluate, whetherthe sizes of the fines without combinations with other measures have a deterrent effect, butthe impression is that this is not always the case. Considering the great safety effect of thismeasure it may be that fines are often are too low to be preventive – especially in combinationwith the fact that the risk of being caught is not very high.

In general, there is a wide range of different sanctions and sanction combinations in thecountries, and it is hard to estimate especially if the size of fines has a preventive effect.

Rehabilitation programs

Alongside or instead of sanctions it may in some cases be appropriate to impose a remedialmeasure, e.g. if a person has a drinking problem.

11 countries have rehabilitation schemes or programs of some kind which seems most oftenjust to be traffic lessons or improvement courses. Such programs may be voluntary as well asobligatory. The quality and effects of the programs are unknown. Sometimes the idea is that ifa driver participates in a program, it will cause reduction in the sanction given.

Cross border enforcement

Information from 14 countries shows in general that cross border enforcement in most of thecountries does either not exist or it is only practiced to a limited degree. Only in 3 countries itis possible to apply the complete enforcement chain on speeding, drinkdriving and restraintuse. In at least 2 countries it is not possible at all.

Thus, this topic has perhaps the poorest compliance with the EC recommendations saying thatthere should be a mechanism for cross border enforcement in relation to serious and/orrepeated violations committed by foreign drivers.

Publicity Campaigns

EC recommends that enforcement actions are combined with information to the public to makethem aware of such enforcement actions and of the reasons why they are being held. Theresults show however, that publicity campaigns are only carried out in all 3 areas (speeding,drinkdriving and nonseat belt use) in 9 of the 18 countries. Several of the countries havepublic campaigns just in one or two of the topics. Moreover, from the information collected, itis not always clear, to which degree the campaigns are related to enforcement actions.


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Thus, it appears as if the practice varies between the countries, and that the ECrecommendations underlining the importance of enhanced enforcement actions beingcombined with publicity campaigns are not followed often and precisely

Availability of data required by the EC Recommendations

In the Annex of the EC Recommendations of Enforcement EC call on the Member States toreport to EC a description of the TLE chain, TLE action plans and implementation of the plansas well as data concerning the focus areas: Speeding, drinkdriving, seat belt use and crossborder vehicles.

TLE chain description is attainable, in principle, in each of the countries, but much morecomplex than perhaps anticipated. The enforcement action plans that are available in mostcountries are very generic, mainly principles and not detailed plans. Data about actualimplementation of traffic policing, are especially scarce. Countries with traffic dataObservatories can provide some behavioral indicators. At present, no country can providereliable national data on actual deployment of police enforcement, especially not in urbanareas.

In the Recommendation the Member States are requested to designate an enforcementcoordination point which should be used for exchanging information on best enforcementpractice in the above mentioned fields. The Coordination Point should forward the informationto the Commission as well as to the other Member States.

All countries reported that they do not have a single designated office (EnforcementCoordination Point) in charge of collecting the TLE data from the many sources in a country.In some countries, a concern was raised about whom in a country will take on the very sizableadministrative burden required to collect and organize the information requested in theRecommendations and share it with the EC and other countries. In some cases the police areresponsible for certain kinds of data collection, while sometimes it is more appropriate thatother Government Agencies take care of the data collection.

However, accident data are available in all countries. They are collected routinely in allEuropean countries, and sent to the IRTAD database and sometimes to the CARE database too.

Looking more specifically on the data categories described in the Annex of the CommissionRecommendation the following picture appears:

For speeding, most of the countries are collecting data concerning Automatic speedenforcement equipment, violation and sanction statistics and speed enforcement procedures.Out of 16 countries 10 countries reports to collect data concerning changes in the rules ofspeeding and less than half collects information on court decisions. Statistics of speedviolations by foreign vehicle drivers is the least covered area.

For drinkdriving in general, most of the countries collect data concerning random andevidential breath testing as well as violation and sanction statistics. A little more than half ofthe countries collect data of changes in rules on drinkdriving. On the other hand, courtdecision statistics and especially statistics on violations by foreign drivers are more sparse.


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The data collection regarding restraint use is most extensive when it comes to violationstatistics, while statistics on sanctions and changes of rules are more modest. In the lower endof data collection appears court decisions and the poorest case is – as with speeding and drinkdriving – statistics on violations by foreign vehicle drivers.

There are some bilateral and multi lateral agreements regarding exchange of informationamong EU countries about cross border traffic violations, but the specific terms of bilateralcross border TLE agreements vary among countries and they are limited to reciprocal tracingof violators and collection of traffic fines. No country allows another country to access itsregistries.

All together, there is a clear picture that violation and sanction data are most frequentlycollected. Less attention is given to data collection concerning changes in rules and Courtdecisions, while data collection on violations by foreign drivers is the absolute poorest withinall three areas.


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9 REFERENCESCARE (2005). Road Safety Country Profiles. CARE project datahttp://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/care/index_en.htm

ECMT (2002). ECMT Key Recommendations on Road Safety. Council of Ministers ofTransport, Bucharest, 2930 May 2002

Enforcement Monitor (2006) (all numbers): ETSC’s news letter on Traffic Law Enforcement inthe EU. (All numbers)

ETSC (2006). Traffic Law Enforcement across the EU: An Overview. European TransportSafety Council, Brussels.

Directive 91/671/EEC regarding compulsory use of safety belts in vehicles of less than 3,5tonnes

European Commission (2006): European Union. Energy and Transport in Figures, 2006.

European Commission (2004). Commission Recommendation of 6 April 2004 on enforcementin the field of road safety. 2004/345/EC. Official Journal of the European Union, L111, 7582.

European Commission (2003). Saving 20.000 lives on our roads. A shared responsibility.

European Commission (2001). White paper, European transport policy for 2010: time todecide.

OECD (2002). Safety on Roads. What’s The Vision? Organization for Economic CoOperationand Development, OECD publications, 2 rue AndrePascal, 75775 Paris CEDEX 16.

PEPPER: Deliverable 6: Comparison and analysis of traffic Enforcement chains across EUMember States and in relation to EU policies. ANNEX.

PEPPER Working Paper 4 (05/03/2007): Pilot study: Guidelines for the collection of TrafficLaw Enforcement (TLE) information. By Vassilios Vavakos & Panos Papaioannou,CERTH/HIT

TIS.PT (2004): Comparative Study of Road Traffic Rules and Corresponding EnforcementActions in the Member States of the European Union”

http://europa.eu.int/comm/transport/care/index_en.htm

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