Reducing traffic violations in minority localities: Designing a traffic enforcement program through a public participation process

The current study tests an innovative public participation process for designing and implementing a tailored traffic enforcement program in minority localities. The quasi-experiment used two matched pairs of randomly selected Israeli Arab localities, where one locality in each pair was randomly assigned to the experimental group and the other to the control group. The intervention’s main features were the public participation process and implementation by police of the traffic enforcement program designed during the process. Systematic field observations on 12,236 vehicles in the four localities found a meaningful and significant reduction in traffic violations in the experimental localities following the intervention, while a small increase in violations was observed in the control localities. The most meaningful decline, indicating improvement in drivers’ behavior, was in non-use of seatbelts and small children in the front seat. The study suggests that a public participation process which identifies local road traffic problems and “dark” hot spots (places where offenses and risky behavior recur but might not be known to the police), followed by implementing tailored solutions for these problems, can reduce traffic violations. Future research should aim to separate out the independent effects of the two phases (the public participation process and tailored enforcement).

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.09.005
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457518305712
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00014575
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Factor, Roni
• Publication Date: 2018-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 71-81
• Serial:
  • Accident Analysis & Prevention
  • Volume: 121
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Elsevier
  • ISSN: 0001-4575
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00014575

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Ethnic groups; High risk locations; Minorities; Public participation; Traffic crashes; Traffic law enforcement; Traffic violations
• Uncontrolled Terms: Localities
• Geographic Terms: Israel
• Subject Areas: Highways; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01684041
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 24 2018 11:17AM