IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v9y2017i10p1771-d113785.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Police Perspectives on Road Safety and Transport Politics in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Gössling

    (Service Management and Service Studies, Lund University, 25108 Helsingborg, Sweden
    School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, 39182 Kalmar, Sweden
    Western Norway Research Institute, 6851 Sogndal, Norway)

Abstract

Road safety is a key concern of transport governance. In the European Union, a Road Safety Programme was adopted in 2011, with the objective to reduce road deaths in Europe by 50% in the period from 2011 to 2020. Evidence suggests, however, that this goal will not be met. Against this background, this paper investigates police perspectives on traffic laws, traffic behaviour, and transport policy. Police officers working with road safety are in a unique position to evaluate and judge the efficiency of road safety policies, as they record traffic offences, fine, investigate, and witness in court. Geographically, focus is on transport policy in Germany, a country with a dense road network, high levels of car ownership, and a large number of car manufacturers. A total of 14 semi-structured interviews were carried out with police officers in a wide variety of positions within the traffic police in Freiburg. Thematic analysis is used to analyse content and to identify aspects that represent major areas of concern. Officers affirm that traffic laws question traffic safety, for instance with regard to speed and speed limits, or elderly drivers. Specific recommendations for changes in transport policies are made, and results are discussed in the context of their implications for road safety and the European Union’s Road Safety Programme.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Gössling, 2017. "Police Perspectives on Road Safety and Transport Politics in Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-16, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1771-:d:113785
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1771/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/10/1771/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Banister, David & Hickman, Robin, 2013. "Transport futures: Thinking the unthinkable," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 283-293.
    2. Raymond Fisman & Edward Miguel, 2007. "Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(6), pages 1020-1048, December.
    3. Richard Arnott & Tilmann Rave & Ronnie Schöb, 2005. "Alleviating Urban Traffic Congestion," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262012197, December.
    4. Mullen, Caroline & Tight, Miles & Whiteing, Anthony & Jopson, Ann, 2014. "Knowing their place on the roads: What would equality mean for walking and cycling?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 238-248.
    5. Schafer, Joseph A. & Mastrofski, Stephen D., 2005. "Police leniency in traffic enforcement encounters: Exploratory findings from observations and interviews," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 225-238.
    6. Gössling, Stefan & Cohen, Scott Allen & Hares, Andrew, 2016. "Inside the black box: EU policy officers' perspectives on transport and climate change mitigation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 83-93.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Katarzyna Nosal Hoy & Katarzyna Solecka & Andrzej Szarata, 2019. "The Application of the Multiple Criteria Decision Aid to Assess Transport Policy Measures Focusing on Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-23, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gössling, Stefan, 2016. "Urban transport justice," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1-9.
    2. Cannizzaro, Anthony P. & Weiner, Robert J., 2015. "Multinational investment and voluntary disclosure: Project-level evidence from the petroleum industry," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 32-47.
    3. Aaron Soans & Masato Abe, 2015. "Bribery, Corruption and Bureaucratic Hassle: Evidence from Myanmar," ARTNeT Working Papers 152, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
    4. Karla Hoff & Mayuresh Kshetramade & Ernst Fehr, 2011. "Caste and Punishment: the Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 449-475, November.
    5. Nelson, Ewan & Warren, Peter, 2020. "UK transport decoupling: On track for clean growth in transport?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 39-51.
    6. Luiz Paulo Fávero & Joseph F. Hair & Rafael de Freitas Souza & Matheus Albergaria & Talles V. Brugni, 2021. "Zero-Inflated Generalized Linear Mixed Models: A Better Way to Understand Data Relationships," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-28, May.
    7. Tomislav Letnik & Katja Hanžič & Giuseppe Luppino & Matej Mencinger, 2022. "Impact of Logistics Trends on Freight Transport Development in Urban Areas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-18, December.
    8. Menusch Khadjavi, 2018. "Deterrence works for criminals," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 165-178, August.
    9. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6unm655ita9ojbuuc83c9h0is8 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Nils Köbis & Jean-François Bonnefon & Iyad Rahwan, 2021. "Bad machines corrupt good morals," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(6), pages 679-685, June.
    11. Lamar Pierce & Jason Snyder, 2015. "Unethical Demand and Employee Turnover," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(4), pages 853-869, November.
    12. Bruno De Borger & Bart Wuyts, 2009. "Commuting, Transport Tax Reform and the Labour Market: Employer-paid Parking and the Relative Efficiency of Revenue Recycling Instruments," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(1), pages 213-233, January.
    13. Timothy Besley & Rohini Pande & Vijayendra Rao, 2012. "Just Rewards? Local Politics and Public Resource Allocation in South India," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 26(2), pages 191-216.
    14. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2016. "Long-Term Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1401-1436, December.
    15. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2015. "Corporate Culture, Societal Culture, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 336-339, May.
    16. Hu, Juncheng, 2021. "Do facilitation payments affect earnings management? Evidence from China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    17. Guangfan Sun & Xin Lin & Junyi Chen & Nuo Xu & Ping Xiong & Hanqi Li, 2023. "Cultural inclusion and corporate sustainability: evidence from food culture and corporate total factor productivity in China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-15, December.
    18. Potrafke, Niklas, 2019. "Electoral cycles in perceived corruption: International empirical evidence," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 215-224.
    19. Ernesto Dal Bó & Marko Terviö, 2013. "Self-Esteem, Moral Capital, And Wrongdoing," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 599-663, June.
    20. Couttenier, Mathieu & Toubal, Farid, 2017. "Corruption for sales," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 56-66.
    21. Massimo Finocchiaro Castro & Calogero Guccio, 2020. "Birds of a feather flock together: trust in government, political selection and electoral punishment," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 263-287, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1771-:d:113785. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.