NCJ Number
186744
Journal
Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Dated: 2000 Pages: 33-46
Date Published
2000
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This analysis of attitudes toward traffic law enforcement and criminal law in England and Wales focuses on speeding and argues that most drivers do not take speeding seriously, despite the tremendous social harm that can result from exceeding speed limits.
Abstract
Speeding has actually been socially constructed as almost a non-crime or as not a real crime. The majority perception of the low seriousness of speeding results from a range of interrelated factors at the levels of the individual, society, and the government. The analysis concludes that efforts to reduce and control excessive speed will need determination and imagination. Simply locating the problems that speeding causes with individual deviant drivers will not produce a change of attitude toward the desirability of speed. Governments need to lead efforts to take speeding more seriously than it is taken now. Countermeasures to speeding can include engineering countermeasures in the vehicle and roads, improve traffic law enforcement, and education. Education at both the individual and organizational levels is likely to be the longer-term solution to the problem of speeding. Reference notes