The challenge of enforcement
Enforcement relies on the idea of deterrence: the
idea that people will be put off from doing bad things
because they believe they will be caught and punished,
and/or because they see other people being caught
and punished. Having weighed up the costs and
benefits of doing the bad thing, we hope that they
then come to the conclusion that it isn’t worth it. Many
factors influence the cost-benefit analysis that takes
place, and there are many different ways that the costs
of the behaviour can be explained. For some people,
the fear of getting caught and punished may be the
only thing that influences their behaviour.
We know that deterrence is most effective when;
detection is very likely; the punishment is significant;
and that this whole process follows on quickly from the
offence. Unfortunately we also know that, in respect of
the first element of this - detection - many road users
are pretty convinced that they are not going to get
caught 1 . This means that we can threaten them with
very quick and very severe punishments as much as we
like - if they don’t believe they’ll get caught, none of this
is relevant.
We don’t have a handy gadget that we can use to
guarantee drivers don’t use their phones, so we need to
supplement our enforcement with efforts at persuading
people why they should not break the law. If we can
get this right, then (theoretically) we wouldn’t need
enforcement because the desire not to offend would
come from inside the individual (see p59). Fortunately,
we also know that there are ways of enforcing the law
that help to increase these internal motivations as we
do it.
Partnership working, leading to consistent
campaign messages, may be the best way to ensure
that enforcement efforts are backed up by efforts to
persuade drivers why the law is the law.
¹ The AA. (2018). What’s the chance of being caught for a driving offence? News report. Available from: https://www.theaa.com/about-us/newsroom/driving-
offence-enforcement.
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