3.1 Penalty Types and Levels
Penalty types and levels for speeding and the various traffic offenses included under aggressive driving are part of each State's overall driver control system. Penalties typically are low for first offenses that do not produce serious crashes and casualties and include small fines and perhaps a few demerit points assessed against the driver's license. When violations cause a crash producing serious injury or death, the offense may carry criminal charges and sanctions may be more severe. As discussed in Chapter 3, Section 1.2, NHTSA's Aggressive Driving Symposium and NCHRP's Aggressive Driving Guide recommend enhanced penalties for repeat aggressive driving offenders and felony charges for offenses resulting in serious injury or death (NHTSA, 2001a, Statutory Strategies; NCHRP, 2004, Strategy A3). Between these two practices, States use the demerit point system in an attempt to prevent drivers from committing repeated traffic offenses. As drivers accumulate demerit points, States use various actions and penalties such as warning letters, educational brochures, group counseling meetings, individual counseling, administrative hearings, and driver's license suspension or revocation (Masten and Peck, 2004). Penalty levels and types for speeding and aggressive driving offenses should be considered within the context of a State's overall driver control and problem driver remediation system. Use: Each State has a system of penalties for traffic offenses. Each system includes more severe penalties for significant individual offenses, such as those producing serious injury or death, and for repeated offenses, often determined through accumulated driver's license demerit points. Effectiveness: Masten and Peck (2004) reviewed the effectiveness evidence for different driver improvement and driver control actions, including penalty levels and types, from 35 high-quality studies of 106 individual actions and penalties. They found that, taken together, all actions and penalties reduced subsequent crashes by 6 percent and violations by 8 percent. Even simple warning letters have some effect on both violations and crashes. The effect increased as the "obtrusiveness" of the action increased, with license suspension or revocation the most effective by far. The authors noted that the threat of license suspension probably is responsible for the effectiveness of the weaker actions such as warning letters. Educational brochures by themselves had no effect. Finally, administrative penalties imposed by the driver licensing agency were more effective than penalties imposed by the courts. Costs: Costs vary by penalty type. For example, warning letters are very cheap once a record system has been established to identify drivers who should receive letters. Individual counseling and administrative hearings may require substantial staff time. Some costs may be recovered through offender fees. Time to implement: Most changes in penalty levels can be implemented quickly within a State's overall driver improvement system. Other issues: Public acceptance, enforcement, and publicity: Changes in speeding and aggressive driving penalty types and levels by themselves cannot reduce speeding and aggressive driving. Traffic laws, penalty types, and penalty levels are essential to, but only a part of, a system that includes broad public acceptance, active enforcement, and publicity (NHTSA, 2001a, Executive Summary). |
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