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regulating occupational health and safety is the assertion that labor markets function very poorly. This book is an interesting and original analysis of the role of market behavior in determining workers’ and employers’ responses to occupational hazards. The author’s major conclusions are that labor markets function reasonably well in this area. These conclusions, which follow from both conceptual and empirical analysis, are supportive of those who would like to see the role of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) significantly reduced.

The first part of this book is a theoretical analysis of models of individual job choice, and their relatjonship to occupational safety and health. The second part of the book describes decisions by firms and their impact on workplace hazards. Viscusi’s most interesting and innovative contribution is his description of workers’ behavioral responses to job hazards. He develops a model in which workers applying for jobs learn about workplace hazards largely after beginning employment. They then decide whether to stay at the job, whose hazards they understand well, or to quit and look for a job which they believe will be more suitable.

Both the theoretical and empirical analysis in this book imply that, as a result of learning about health and safety risks, workers quit their jobs more often in hazardous industries than in safe industries. Viscusi suggests that this quitting is adaptive labor market behavior in the face of high and uncertain job risks, and that quitting may be a very effective response to workplace hazards.

A second major topic in this book is a discussion of wage premiums for hazardous employment. Where wage premiums exist, they are often seen as evidence that workers are trading workplace safety for increased income. As in the case of hazard-induced turnover, this suggests that labor markets are responding to hazardous employment conditions. Chapter Two develops a conceptual model of the relationship between wages and working conditions. Later, Viscusi estimates the wage premiums paid to workers for extra job hazards. This is the best and most careful attempt to date to measure “hazard wages”. The analysis of data from the 1969-70 University of Michigan survey of working conditions suggests that workers are paid on the average, over $1 million dollars (in 1969 dollars) to compensate for the risk of a lost life. The extra payment for the risk of a non-fatal injury is about $10.000. Unionized workers appear to have much higher earnings premiums than do unorganized workers.

In addition to the two major areas reviewed here. the book covers several other topics. There are two interesting chapters on the problem of employers’ supplying workers with adequate information about job hazards. Other chapters discuss life cycle effects and job risks, the role of unions, and worker perceptions of job jazards.

Viscusi describes adaptive market responses to both the existence of job hazards and uncertainty about those hazards. He provides estimates of the impact of job hazards on quit rates and risk premiums. How!ever, he does not (and in principle cannot) tell us whether these adaptive market responses to risk are s~~~cient to warrant reduced regulation of occupational

health and safety. On the contrary, there are a variety of institutional barriers to labor mobility, such as discrimination and seniority rights. These factors limit the ability of market behavior to adequately reflect worker preferences about exposure to health and safety risks. As Viscusi

notes, “These and other shortcomings of market outcomes can potentially be alleviated by some form of governmental intervention” (p. 274). The form and extent of that intervention continues to be a major topic of controversy.

LI-SI.IE I. BODEK

Ocrupctional Health Program Harrard School of Public Health

Traffic Law Enforcement. Donald J. Basham, Sergeant, California Highway Patrol; Instructor, College of the Redwoods, Eureka, California. Charles C. Thomas. Publisher, Springfield, Illinois, 1978. 163 pp. $9.75.

This book provides an informative overviewg of the basic trail% law enforcement responsibilities of the operational level patrol ofhcer. It appears to be based primarily upon the prior training.

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personal experiences and observations of the author. Little reference is made to any other authoritative sources in the field.

Valuable features of the work are a glossary of terms to enable interpretation, and a listing of specific learning goals at the beginning of each chapter which aid in reader comprehension. The greatest area of valuable information is contained in the three chapters dealing with the intoxicated driver.

The author has stressed the importance of value judgments or decisions which must be made by the individual officer in the performance of his job. He also suggests that the widest possible latitude in discretion be permitted at the street level of execution. Little or no emphasis has been placed upon the need for policy or other forms of administrative guidance to enhance the quality of judgment required of the street officer in exercising discretion. If departmental programs are to have meaning to the citizen, then a high degree of uniformity in discretionary decisions by street officers must be achieved and maintained. A failure to provide for this type of uniform application can result in nonacceptance by officers and citizens alike.

The procedures suggested for the officer to follow are basically sound, yet none of these should be considered as the only acceptable ones that are available and applicable. None should be considered for implementation by an officer unless approved by the officer’s own agency. Other procedures are available and have proven effective when properly interpreted and applied under proper direction and control of an agency and its supervisory personnel.

Each police administrator and his staff have an explicit responsibility to identify and define those methodologies, strategies and tactics and the related procedures to be followed by the personnel which are deemed best suited to fulfill the mission and to attain the goals and objectives established by and for a particular police agency. This administrative guidance should, in turn, provide the core knowledge for police training or special educational programs for agency members.

An instructor may best use this text to provide background information to a student. This should result in classroom discussion as an aid to understanding basic procedural approaches to traffic patrol. It should also enable exploration of other useful procedures, limitations on the individual officer’s discretion, effects of improper application of techniques, and possible consequences of improper judgments or decisions.

JAMES KEENE The Traflfc Institute Northwestern University

BRIEF NOTICES

Cannabis and Driving: f~~licatio~s of Moderation in Penalties, R. A. Warren and H. M. Simpson. Traffic Injury Research Foundation of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 1980. $4.00.

This report considers the traffic safety implication of moderation in penalties associated with cannabis use and possession, The initial section provides a review of the research literature on cannabis use and possession. The authors report that, although no single study can provide a sufficient evidentiary basis, when taken as a whole, the studies provide a sound basis for concern with regards to the salience of cannabis to traffic safety.

Within the context of the results of these studies, three alternative forms of cannabis legislation are considered: status quo, moderation in penalties, and moderation with monitoring and risk control. It is concluded that, even if a status quo option is finally adopted, there remains a sufficient basis for increased societal concern with respect to cannabis and driving, and that steps should be taken to monitor and control cannabis use in driving situations.

It is also acknowledged that there is an insu~cient basis at present to forecast the magnitude of the costs associated with moderations in cannabis penalties. Studies in other jurisdictions have concluded that moderation in penalties has not been followed characteristically by disproportionate increases in frequency of use, but have not ruled out important changes in the