Law and road safety: Strategies for modifying the social environment, with particular reference to alcohol control policies*
| Date | 01 June 1988 |
| Author | Ross Homel,Paul Wilson |
| Published date | 01 June 1988 |
| DOI | 10.1177/000486588802100204 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
104 (1988) 21
ANZJ
Crim
LAW AND ROAD SAFETY:
STRATEGIES FOR MODIFYING TUE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT,
WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO ALCOHOL
CONTROL POLICIES*
Ross
Homer
and Paul Wilson+
In reports on road safety it is customary to refer to the three
"Es"
of enforcement,
engineering (or environment) and education, and then, depending on the authors'
biases, to point
out
why
one
is really of critical importance and the others have been
over-emphasised. In particular, the importance of engineering or environmental
approaches is often stressed, in concert with the lament that the emphasis on
"human
factors" has diverted resources from these critical areas of endeavour (eg:
Klein and Waller, 1970).
We are inclined to agree with this lament, and fear that the success in Australia
of deterrence-based policies such as random breath testing could lead to the neglect
of legal counter measures which have the potential to alter the social and physical
environments in directions conducive to greater safety on the roads. As Ross (1986)
has argued, deterrence thinking comes easily to people like legislators, and "if all
you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail" (p 20).
Of
course,
hammers and nails are very important in their place, and the dramatic declines in
road fatalities in New South Wales and Tasmania in response to random breath
testing (HomeI, 1988) strongly indicate that the architects of public policy should
not yet abandon such traditional tools! However,
other
building materials are
available as weIl, and it is the purpose of this
paper
to discuss some ways in which
law could be used to effect changes in the broader environment.
We present amodel of the ways in which legal interventions may influence traffic
offences, with particular emphasis on the roles of non-legal sanctions
and
of the
social and physical environment. We then investigate, through an examination of
the relationship between alcohol control policies and traffic crashes, the potential
of law to influence drinking and driving behaviours in ways
other
than through
traditional traffic law enforcement.
Other
aspects of legal control,
not
all directed
at alcohol-related traffic offences, are considered in Homel and Wilson (1987).
Criminological Theory and Road Safety Policies
Recent developments in criminological theory and crime control policy stress the
importance of the physical environment in influencing the decision to offend and in
constraining the nature of the offences committed (eg: Bennett and Wright, 1986).
One
example of the practical policies implemented in the past few years is "target
hardening" to reduce the incidence of vandalism or robbery (Mayhew, Clarke,
Sturman and Hough, 1976). Similarly, the critical importance of features of the
social environment in encouraging or discouraging the commission of specific
offences is increasingly recognised. For example, Felson (1986) has argued
that
*This paper is adapted frorn
areport
published by the Australian Institute of Crirninology (Hornel
and Wilson, (1987).
tBSc, MSc, PhD, Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural Sciences, Macquarie University, 2109.
:j: BA, MA, PhD, Assistant Director (Research and Statistics), Australian Institute of Crirninology,
PO Box 28, Woden, 2606.
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