OBJECTIVE 4:  Identify and promote effective speed enforcement activities.

Strategy 1:  Provide enforcement guidelines that promote driver compliance with appropriately set speed limits.

Effective enforcement works primarily through the principle of general deterrence.  The fundamental concept is that credible threats of apprehension and punishment deter unwanted driving behaviors.  Enforcement activities should focus on areas where speeding is overrepresented in crash occurrence.

Key Actions:

  • Develop best practices guidelines for speed enforcement programs in combination with education and media activities.  (Planned, 2 years)

Strategy 2:   Support speed-enforcement operations.

Most contacts between citizens and law enforcement officers occur during traffic stops.  More than half of all traffic stops result from speeding violations.  Public support for speed enforcement activities depends on the confidence of the public that speed enforcement is motivated by safety concerns, fair, and rational.

Key Actions:

  • Provide model-speed measuring device operator training programs.  (In progress)

  • Provide performance specifications and testing protocols for speed-measuring device technologies.  (In progress)

  • Provide independent testing laboratories for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of speed-measuring device technologies.  (In progress)

Strategy 3:  Promote the appropriate use of automated speed enforcement.

Automated enforcement has been shown to be effective in high crash locations, particularly on high-volume roadways and locations where it is unsafe to conduct traditional enforcement operations.  Public support of automated speed enforcement programs is dependent on it being used where there is a crash problem, perceived as fair and not used as a revenue raising strategy.

Key Actions:

  • Identify appropriate applications for automated speed enforcement technology and evaluate its safety effectiveness.  (In progress)

  • Provide implementation guidelines for automated speed enforcement systems.  (Planned, 1 year)

  • Provide a model automated speed-measuring device operator training program.  (Planned, 1 year)

  • Promote the application of automated speed enforcement systems that employ a combination of fines and licensing penalties designed to effectively deter speeding and prohibit revenue generation beyond reasonable operational cost.  (Planned, 1 year)

Strategy 4:  Promote enforcement activities that effectively target driver behaviors resulting in speeding-related crashes.

Enforcement operations should establish enforcement thresholds that focus on egregious and crash producing speeders.  This strategy will not overwhelm law enforcement or the courts.  The overall goal of the enforcement efforts is motorist compliance.

Key Actions:

  • Support speed enforcement activities that complement a comprehensive speed management program including traffic engineering, law enforcement, and the judiciary.  (In progress)

  • Support high visibility enforcement efforts that strategically address speeders, locations, and conditions most common, or most hazardous, in speeding-related crashes.  (In progress)

  • Promote speed enforcement as part of the National Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Enforcement Program.  (Planned, 1 year)