Enforcement

Enforcement and Penalties
 
ACRS Policy Position

ACRS supports enforcement measures that:

• enhance respect for road law
• emphasise certainty of detection and punishment
• demonstrably have the safety of road users as a primary concern, and by corollary reject implications of revenue raising.

Compulsory carriage of a driver's licence is an essential component of enforcement and a deterrent to unlicensed driving.

Penalties for traffic infringements should be sufficient to act as an effective deterrent, appropriate to the offence and applied rigorously.

Revenues from traffic fines should be directed to enhancement of safety.

Objective

To support effective, equitable enforcement of road law.

Discussion

Enforcement is a critical component of maintaining order and safety in road traffic, and public respect for and compliance with road law.   The weight of enforcement should be directed to behaviours and locations that are known crash problems.

The ACRS policy position follows the basic principles of effective deterrence and application of penalties when infringements are detected.

A brief statement of these principles is:

• Enforcement should in general involve a visible Police presence (this does not prevent random techniques or operations), and be carried out in a fair manner
• Enforcement should emphasise certainty of detection and apprehension before severity of penalty
• Enforcement should be seen to be rational and to have a safety objective.   Accusations of revenue raising, whether justified or not, reduce respect for the law. 

Enforcement of road law should have a preventative function.   Enforcement practices such as those outlined should be aimed as much at preventing infringements as detecting them.   Appropriate measures can include information and education, speedometer checks and messages, warnings, and a high level of visible police presence on the roads.

Penalties for traffic offences need to be sufficient to be an effective deterrent against offending, but should be appropriate to the safety implications of the offence and provide for a mix of administrative and court-imposed sanctions.   Severity of penalty should not be substituted for certainty of detection:   there is little sense in applying a very severe penalty as a deterrent if the perceived probability of detection is so low as to make the likelihood of incurring the penalty negligible.   Some principles are:

• There should be reasonable certainty that penalties for infringements will be imposed, and will be not easily escapable
• Penalties should be imposed as soon as possible after the infringement is detected, especially in the case of camera offences where the infringement is notified some time after the offence
• The severity and scale of penalties should be appropriate to the offence, and should provide a range of financial, licence and custodial or community service sanctions
• There may be case for scaled penalties that include official cautions and warnings that refer directly to the safety issue.

Licence removal should be used sparingly and for serious offences, and should carry with it a real threat of detection of unlicensed driving.   Therefore, one component of enforcement policies should be compulsory carriage of the driver's licence.

A frequent public concern is that enforcement and traffic fines are perceived as 'revenue raising'.   This should be avoided by ensuring that enforcement is carried out in a fair manner and towards behaviours, and in locations that are recognised safety problems.   The proceeds of traffic fines should not go into general State revenues, but should preferably be applied to road safety improvement.   This could take the form of 'black spot' removal, public education and information campaigns, or road safety research.