Traffic Law Sanctions

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Traffic Law Sanctions

J. T. McEwen / J. P. McGuire

Surveys of the driver population were conducted in Colorado, Maryland, and North Carolina for the purpose of determining driver perceptions on several different subjects, including (1) the chances of being caught by the police for specific unsafe driving actions, (2) the chances of being found guilty by the courts if a challenge were made, (3) the fine for a first violation of an offense, the perceived severity of the fine, and (5) other related topics of interest of a deterrence nature. Questions on these topics were asked on seven different offenses which had been identified in previous NHTSA research as being the primary unsafe driving actions associated with accident causation. The seven offenses were speeding 10 miles per hour over the posted speed limit, speeding 20 miles per hour over the posted speed limit, driving while intoxicated, running a traffic light or stop sign, following a moving car too closely, turning in front of oncoming traffic, and crossing the center line of the roadway. Through an independent data collection effort, it was also possible to obtain the citation history of all survey respondents and whether they had appeared in court for a particular violation. The number of citations for each type of offense was obtained for a three-year period prior to the survey. A total of over 2,600 drivers participated in the survey. The Final Report provides details on the survey responses as related to citation histories.