Six Initial Challenges for developing an enforcement regime
A local authority is examining its plans to start enforcement against moving traffic offences. Consultations with the police, road safety pressure groups, parents associations, head teachers, motorists’ organisations and the motorists themselves have produced a list of locations where enforcement will be necessary and justified. Challenge: In what way and to what extent will local authority parking services consult with similar sources and others not mentioned here?
Let us assume that traffic planners have taken into account the patterns of traffic flow, the local bottlenecks, the spots which will give the road users their “referred pain”- not physically but where action in one location will trigger chaos in other places! Challenge: what criteria will local authorities use for selecting enforcement points?
How does the local authority plan to alert the motorists when they approach an enforcement point or area? Challenge: There are two points of view – a) that motorists do not need to be warned about the location of a camera. They should be following road signs and the Highway Code anyway and at all times, and b) that providing advance warnings against locations with new cameras is a fair way of treating motorists especially those who use local roads for commuter runs.
Assuming that a local authority has done its homework in selecting the most important locations for enforcement, how does it prioritise its decisions to place cameras? Challenge: This decision is likely to attract the most criticism from motorists. If ease of enforcement and recovery of cost is their chosen criterion, the authority can select the busiest yellow box-junctions and conditional 'right-turns'. The cameras will click ‘furiously’ and generate steady and predictable revenue streams. The motorists will soon be saying “ Ah! We told you so, they only want to make money”.
There are likely to be residents who are conscious about road safety and may ask for cameras to be installed to deal with a local hazard, such as a ‘no entry’ point, a ‘no u turn’ or a school crossing point. Challenge: how will the local authority aim to provide equitable and fair enforcement where the temptation is to install cameras at least cost for maximum return? Road crossing points outside schools are a periodic hazard and may not warrant extra measures, according to some authorities.
There will be key decisions relating to concentration and dispersal of cameras. Where a local authority uses its entire budget to place cameras in the busiest parts of the city, they run the risk of exposing the less congested areas to regular contraventions. Challenge: what criteria will local authorities use to select the right technology and the mix of cameras in order to ensure that a sense of balance should prevail?
Finally, there is a solution. The local authority should invest in developing a ‘DTE Business Plan’, that is, a Decriminalised Traffic Enforcement Business Plan. The local authority will have to seriously look into its assumptions, prepare a cost-benefit-analysis on the one hand and weigh its decisions relating to equity, spread or concentration of cameras, educating the road user and choice of technology on the other. There is a problem though. Does the authority have a business plan for the rest of parking provision? Many parking services which are driven by regulatory pressures will not want to spend money on business planning. The money they save will be miniscule compared the the money they stand to lose.
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