IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v210y2022ics0047272722000652.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Speed limit enforcement and road safety

Author

Listed:
  • Bauernschuster, Stefan
  • Rekers, Ramona

Abstract

We study the impact on road safety of one-day massive speed limit monitoring operations (SLMO) accompanied by media campaigns that announce the SLMO and provide information on the dangers of speeding. Using register data on the universe of police reported accidents in a generalized difference-in-differences approach, we find that SLMO reduce traffic accidents and casualties by eight percent. Yet, immediately after the SLMO day, all effects vanish. Further evidence suggests that people drive more slowly and responsibly on SLMO days to avoid fines; providing information on the dangers of speeding does not alter speeders' driving behavior in a sustainable way.

Suggested Citation

  • Bauernschuster, Stefan & Rekers, Ramona, 2022. "Speed limit enforcement and road safety," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:210:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000652
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104663
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272722000652
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104663?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    2. Dara Lee Luca, 2015. "Do Traffic Tickets Reduce Motor Vehicle Accidents? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 85-106, January.
    3. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Klick, Jonathan & Tabarrok, Alexander, 2005. "Using Terror Alert Levels to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(1), pages 267-279, April.
    5. Markus Gehrsitz, 2017. "Speeding, Punishment, and Recidivism: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(3), pages 497-528.
    6. Aaron Chalfin & Justin McCrary, 2018. "Are U.S. Cities Underpoliced? Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 167-186, March.
    7. Esther Duflo & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "The Role of Information and Social Interactions in Retirement Plan Decisions: Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 815-842.
    8. A. Colin Cameron & Jonah B. Gelbach & Douglas L. Miller, 2008. "Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 414-427, August.
    9. Jessica Wisdom & Julie S. Downs & George Loewenstein, 2010. "Promoting Healthy Choices: Information versus Convenience," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 164-178, April.
    10. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Daniel Keniston & Nina Singh, 2019. "The Efficient Deployment of Police Resources: Theory and New Evidence from a Randomized Drunk Driving Crackdown in India," NBER Working Papers 26224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Pascaline Dupas, 2011. "Do Teenagers Respond to HIV Risk Information? Evidence from a Field Experiment in Kenya," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-34, January.
    12. Aaron Chalfin & Justin McCrary, 2017. "Criminal Deterrence: A Review of the Literature," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 5-48, March.
    13. Sara Markowitz & Pinka Chatterji, 2015. "Effects Of Bicycle Helmet Laws On Children'S Injuries," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 26-40, January.
    14. Gregory DeAngelo & Benjamin Hansen, 2014. "Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 231-257, May.
    15. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    16. Gerlinde Fellner & Rupert Sausgruber & Christian Traxler, 2009. "Testing Enforcement Strategies in the Field: Legal Threat, Moral Appeal and Social Information," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2009_31, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    17. Orley Ashenfelter & Michael Greenstone, 2004. "Using Mandated Speed Limits to Measure the Value of a Statistical Life," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 226-267, February.
    18. repec:bla:kyklos:v:41:y:1988:i:2:p:301-23 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Steven D. Levitt & Jack Porter, 2001. "Sample Selection In The Estimation Of Air Bag And Seat Belt Effectiveness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(4), pages 603-615, November.
    20. Dee, Thomas S., 2009. "Motorcycle helmets and traffic safety," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 398-412, March.
    21. Levitt, Steven D, 1997. "Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 270-290, June.
    22. Gerlinde Fellner & Rupert Sausgruber & Christian Traxler, 2013. "Testing Enforcement Strategies In The Field: Threat, Moral Appeal And Social Information," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 634-660, June.
    23. Gehrsitz, Markus, 2017. "Speeding, Punishment, and Recidivism: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design," IZA Discussion Papers 10707, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    24. Rahi Abouk & Scott Adams, 2013. "Texting Bans and Fatal Accidents on Roadways: Do They Work? Or Do Drivers Just React to Announcements of Bans?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 179-199, April.
    25. Stephen Machin & Olivier Marie, 2011. "Crime And Police Resources: The Street Crime Initiative," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 678-701, August.
    26. Blumenthal, Marsha & Christian, Charles W. & Slemrod, Joel, 2001. "Do Normative Appeals Affect Tax Compliance? Evidence From a Controlled Experiment in Minnesota," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(1), pages 125-138, March.
    27. Joseph J. Doyle & Steven D. Levitt, 2010. "Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Child Safety Seats And Seat Belts In Protecting Children From Injury," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(3), pages 521-536, July.
    28. Samuel Cameron, 1988. "The Economics of Crime Deterrence: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(2), pages 301-323, May.
    29. Michael D. Makowsky & Thomas Stratmann, 2011. "More Tickets, Fewer Accidents: How Cash-Strapped Towns Make for Safer Roads," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(4), pages 863-888.
    30. Dolls, Mathias & Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas & Stichnoth, Holger, 2018. "Do retirement savings increase in response to information about retirement and expected pensions?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 168-179.
    31. Evans, William N. & Owens, Emily G., 2007. "COPS and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1-2), pages 181-201, February.
    32. Blumenthal, Marsha & Christian, Charles W. & Slemrod, Joel, 2001. "Do Normative Appeals Affect Tax Compliance? Evidence from a Controlled Experiment in Minnesota," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 54(n. 1), pages 125-38, March.
    33. Steven D. Levitt, 2008. "Evidence that Seat Belts Are as Effective as Child Safety Seats in Preventing Death for Children Aged Two and Up," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 158-163, February.
    34. Rafael Di Tella & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2004. "Do Police Reduce Crime? Estimates Using the Allocation of Police Forces After a Terrorist Attack," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 115-133, March.
    35. Jan Eeckhout & Nicola Persico & Petra E. Todd, 2010. "A Theory of Optimal Random Crackdowns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1104-1135, June.
    36. Stefan Bauernschuster & Timo Hener & Helmut Rainer, 2017. "When Labor Disputes Bring Cities to a Standstill: The Impact of Public Transit Strikes on Traffic, Accidents, Air Pollution, and Health," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-37, February.
    37. van Benthem, Arthur, 2015. "What is the optimal speed limit on freeways?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 44-62.
    38. Hunt Allcott & Todd Rogers, 2014. "The Short-Run and Long-Run Effects of Behavioral Interventions: Experimental Evidence from Energy Conservation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3003-3037, October.
    39. Alma Cohen & Liran Einav, 2003. "The Effects of Mandatory Seat Belt Laws on Driving Behavior and Traffic Fatalities," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 828-843, November.
    40. Robert Jensen, 2010. "The (Perceived) Returns to Education and the Demand for Schooling," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(2), pages 515-548.
    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. Cloud, Cannon & Heß, Simon & Kasinger, Johannes, 2023. "Shared e-scooter services and road safety: Evidence from six European countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    2. Soliz, Aryana & Carvalho, Thiago & Sarmiento-Casas, Claudio & Sánchez-Rodríguez, Jorge & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2023. "Scaling up active transportation across North America: A comparative content analysis of policies through a social equity framework," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Metz-Peeters, Maike, 2023. "The Effects of Mandatory Speed Limits on Crash Frequency - A Causal Machine Learning Approach," Ruhr Economic Papers 982, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen, revised 2023.
    4. Nehiba, Cody & Tyndall, Justin, 2023. "Highways and pedestrian deaths in US neighborhoods," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    5. Mika Sutela & Nino Lindstrom, 2024. "A game theoretic approach to lowering incentives to violate speed limits in Finland," Papers 2402.09556, arXiv.org.
    6. Martti Kaila, 2024. "How Do People React to Income-Based Fines? Evidence from Speeding Tickets Discontinuities," CESifo Working Paper Series 11064, CESifo.

    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. Molitor, Ramona, 2017. "Publicly announced speed limit enforcement and its impact on road safety: Evidence from the German Blitzmarathons," Passauer Diskussionspapiere, Volkswirtschaftliche Reihe V-75-17, University of Passau, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    2. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    3. Christophe Bellégo & Joeffrey Drouard, 2019. "Does It Pay to Fight Crime? Evidence From the Pacification of Slums in Rio de Janeiro," Working Papers 2019-08, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    4. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Oscar Volij & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2023. "When do more police induce more crime?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 76(3), pages 759-778, October.
    5. Anna Bindler & Randi Hjalmarsson, 2021. "The Impact of the First Professional Police Forces on Crime [State Capacity and Economic Development: A Network Approach]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(6), pages 3063-3103.
    6. Lovett, Nicholas & Xue, Yuhan, 2022. "Rare homicides, criminal behavior, and the returns to police labor," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 172-195.
    7. Mastrobuoni, Giovanni, 2019. "Police disruption and performance: Evidence from recurrent redeployments within a city," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 18-31.
    8. Lu, Fangwen & Zhang, Jinan & Perloff, Jeffrey M., 2016. "General and specific information in deterring traffic violations: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 97-107.
    9. Tom Kirchmaier & Stephen Machin & Matteo Sandi & Robert Witt, 2020. "Prices, Policing and Policy: The Dynamics of Crime Booms and Busts," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 1040-1077.
    10. Casilda Lasso de la Vega & Oscar Volij & Federico Weinschelbaum, 2021. "Can more police induce more crime?," Working Papers 2107, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    11. Ater, Itai & Givati, Yehonatan & Rigbi, Oren, 2014. "Organizational structure, police activity and crime," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 62-71.
    12. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & Robert Witt, 2011. "Panic on the Streets of London: Police, Crime, and the July 2005 Terror Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2157-2181, August.
    13. Gregory De & Marina Toger & Sarit Weisburd, 2023. "Police Response Time and Injury Outcomes," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(654), pages 2147-2177.
    14. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2019. "Police reorganization and crime: Evidence from police station closures," Working Papers 07/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    15. Cho, Sungwoo & Gonçalves, Felipe & Weisburst, Emily, 2021. "Do Police Make Too Many Arrests? The Effect of Enforcement Pullbacks on Crime," IZA Discussion Papers 14907, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Galiani, Sebastian & Lopez Cruz, Ivan & Torrens, Gustavo, 2018. "Stirring up a hornets’ nest: Geographic distribution of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 17-35.
    17. Steven N. Durlauf & Daniel S. Nagin, 2010. "The Deterrent Effect of Imprisonment," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 43-94, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Kang, Songman & Kim, Duol, 2022. "Focus vs. spread: Police box consolidation and its impact on crime in Korea," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    19. Alexander F. McQuoid & J. Britton Haynes Jr., 2017. "The Thin (Red) Blue Line: Police Militarization and Violent Crime," Departmental Working Papers 56, United States Naval Academy Department of Economics.
    20. Gerson Javier Perez, 2012. "Primera versión de la política de seguridad democrática: se cumplieron los objetivos?," Revista de Economía del Rosario, Universidad del Rosario, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Traffic; Law enforcement; Safety; Accidents;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:pubeco:v:210:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000652. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    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.