Enforcement, education… or engineering. Which changes behavior most effectively?
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Traffic safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
How We Drive is the companion blog to Tom Vanderbilt’s New York Times bestselling book, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), published by Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and Canada, Penguin in the U.K, and in languages other than English by a number of other fine publishers worldwide.
Please send tips, news, research papers, links, photos (bad road signs, outrageous bumper stickers, spectacularly awful acts of driving or parking or anything traffic-related), or ideas for my Slate.com Transport column to me at: info@howwedrive.com.
For publicity inquiries, please contact Kate Runde at Vintage: krunde@randomhouse.com.
For editorial inquiries, please contact Zoe Pagnamenta at The Zoe Pagnamenta Agency: zoe@zpagency.com.
For speaking engagement inquiries, please contact
Jenna Meulemans at the Knopf Speaker Bureau.
Order Traffic from:
Amazon
Random House | Powell’s
For UK publicity enquiries please contact Rosie Glaisher at Penguin.
April 9, 2008.
California Office of Traffic Safety Summit
San Francisco, CA.
May 19, 2009
University of Minnesota Center for Transportation Studies
Bloomington, MN
June 23, 2009
Driving Assessment 2009
Big Sky, Montana
June 26, 2009
PRI World Congress
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
June 27, 2009
Day of Architecture
Utrecht, The Netherlands
July 13, 2009
Association of Transportation Safety Information Professionals (ATSIP)
Phoenix, AZ.
August 12-14
Texas Department of Transportation “Save a Life Summit”
San Antonio, Texas
September 2, 2009
Governors Highway Safety Association Annual Meeting
Savannah, Georgia
September 11, 2009
Oregon Transportation Summit
Portland, Oregon
October 8
Honda R&D Americas
Raymond, Ohio
October 10-11
INFORMS Roundtable
San Diego, CA
October 21, 2009
California State University-San Bernardino, Leonard Transportation Center
San Bernardino, CA
November 5
Southern New England Planning Association Planning Conference
Uncasville, Connecticut
January 6
Texas Transportation Forum
Austin, TX
January 19
Yale University
(with Donald Shoup; details to come)
Monday, February 22
Yale University School of Architecture
Eero Saarinen Lecture
Friday, March 19
University of Delaware
Delaware Center for Transportation
April 5-7
University of Utah
Salt Lake City
McMurrin Lectureship
April 19
International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (Organization Management Workshop)
Austin, Texas
Monday, April 26
Edmonton Traffic Safety Conference
Edmonton, Canada
Monday, June 7
Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals
Niagara Falls, Ontario
Wednesday, July 6
Fondo de Prevención Vial
Bogotá, Colombia
Tuesday, August 31
Royal Automobile Club
Perth, Australia
Wednesday, September 1
Australasian Road Safety Conference
Canberra, Australia
Wednesday, September 22
Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s
Traffic Incident Management Enhancement Program
Statewide Conference
Wisconsin Dells, WI
Wednesday, October 20
Rutgers University
Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation
Piscataway, NJ
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Ontario Injury Prevention Resource Centre
Injury Prevention Forum
Toronto
Monday, May 2
Idaho Public Driver Education Conference
Boise, Idaho
Tuesday, June 2, 2011
California Association of Cities
Costa Mesa, California
Sunday, August 21, 2011
American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Attitudes: Iniciativa Social de Audi
Madrid, Spain
April 16, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Gardens Theatre, QUT
Brisbane, Australia
April 17, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Centennial Plaza, Sydney
Sydney, Australia
April 19, 2012
Institute for Sensible Transport Seminar
Melbourne Town Hall
Melbourne, Australia
January 30, 2013
University of Minnesota City Engineers Association Meeting
Minneapolis, MN
January 31, 2013
Metropolis and Mobile Life
School of Architecture, University of Toronto
February 22, 2013
ISL Engineering
Edmonton, Canada
March 1, 2013
Australian Road Summit
Melbourne, Australia
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[MySpace]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/myspace.png)
![[Slashdot]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/slashdot.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.howwedrive.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
August 27th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I’m a firm believer that motorists don’t *want* to drive poorly; we just encourage them to do so. Hence, I believe that any problem can be tackled through design.
However… “effectively” is a loaded word: some problems could require utterly infeasible changes financially, politically, etc.
I tend to think rather little of education… my opinion is that motorists have been given a license to operate a motor vehicle on public infrastructure, hence the State should be taking due precaution to ensure that their operators are properly trained in advance. That is: regular retesting & more comprehensive testing.
Back to education: posters & videos might be politically-pleasing & easy to forward around… but I have yet to know anyone that’s actually stuck to vows not to text, drink, eat, smoke, etc. while driving… I can’t even get my own parents to stop talking on their mobile — they still leave me voicemail while they’re driving, despite my voicemail message which only says “If you are driving, hang up now. [BEEP]”
Enforcement certainly works: spot enforcement keeps speeds down while the officer is there, though this is an incredibly short-term effect as speeds tend to pick up not long after the officer departs — unless it’s regular spot enforcement, but it’s expensive to keep labor on-site so frequently; and an officer can only write so many tickets; and then there’s the court dates…
Spot automated enforcement may reduce speeds, but the effects tend to be localised — potentially creating as many issues as they address. Area automated enforcement, using sensors at the start and end of a segment to determine the average speed of a vehicle, has so far been turning up good results. These can actually have a negative cost or be cost-neutral, considering revenue generation… but of course the more negative that goes: the more political fallout there may be.
So if you want “effective” in a sense of cost vs. benefit… I’m the most ardent believer in fixing through design, but enforcement could — by the numbers — be the winner. Hence why I’d love to see enforcement cameras have a non-profit business model & also return generated revenue to redesign & address the specific issues prompting enforcement. And “education” should replaced with “licensure” … it breaks the 3 E’s, but I think EEL sounds better, anyway.
August 27th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Education doesn’t work when the students don’t pay attention and don’t want to learn. I still hear the same wildly inaccurate driving “rules” repeated in watercooler conversations that I heard first from fellow high-school students. Drivers don’t bother to find out the rules, and they get defensive if anyone suggests they might need to brush up on them. Instead, I tend to point out that passing a drivers-course can often knock insurance premiums down – people love a hint about saving money.
Enforcement can start out as a good idea, but it frequently becomes an automated for-profit enterprise that actually encourages leaving bad design in place (eg: if we add chicanes to this road, people will stop speeding and our ticket revenue will dry up)
My vote is for Engineering. Drivers can’t ignore it or avoid it and it’s never possible to “sneak” past it. It’s on-duty 100% of the time and has the biggest stick in the arsenal backing it up (the laws of physics).
August 28th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Education.
A driver who takes this seriously can go anywhere in the world– and on good roads, at higher speeds than what is now allowed. The proof is in the extra training that some professionals get, on our same roads.