IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/trapol/v40y2015icp1-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Immense changes in traffic – Considerable stability in discourses. Road speed in Danish parliamentary documents 1900–2010

Author

Listed:
  • Siren, Anu
  • Sørensen, Claus Hedegaard

Abstract

Research on road safety acknowledges speed as having a major impact on both the number and severity of road crashes, and this seems to have been translated into policies. However, a closer look reveals that the societal debate and political context also seem to play a major role in the way road safety policies are shaped. Yet, the knowledge on the political discourse regarding speeding and speed management is scarce. In this paper, we analyze the ways speed has been managed and legislated in transport policymaking by studying Danish parliamentary documents from 1903 through 2010. Analyzing the material qualitatively in two phases, first, we looked for notable policy shifts in the material, and consequently identified five historical periods. Second, we analyzed these periods in more detail, and identified and analyzed four repetitive discourses about speed across them, which were as follows: speed, individual rights and responsibilities; speed and safety; speed, policy measures, and law enforcement; and speed and other societal goals. While the transport system has undergone a massive change during the last 100 years, we found a considerable stability in the discourses regarding speed policies. The themes and patterns we distinguished in the documents occurred repeatedly. Certain discourses are strongly connected to the way speed is discussed and governed, and these are likely to emerge when speed policies are taken up in the parliamentary context. We conclude that in addition to the current prominent discourses, past discourses may have a strong influence on the way safety measures and policies are being understood and accepted.

Suggested Citation

  • Siren, Anu & Sørensen, Claus Hedegaard, 2015. "Immense changes in traffic – Considerable stability in discourses. Road speed in Danish parliamentary documents 1900–2010," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-7.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:trapol:v:40:y:2015:i:c:p:1-7
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2015.02.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967070X15000268
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tranpol.2015.02.005?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Sherry Xin & Eckel, Catherine C. & Grossman, Philip J. & Brown, Tara Larson, 2011. "Giving to government: Voluntary taxation in the lab," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9-10), pages 1190-1201, October.
    2. Oecd & Nea, 2012. "Intergovernmental organisation activities," Nuclear Law Bulletin, OECD Publishing, vol. 2011(2), pages 99-106.
    3. Fridstrom, Lasse & Elvik, Rune, 1997. "The Barely Revealed Preference behind Road Investment Priorities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 92(1-2), pages 145-168, July.
    4. Elvik, Rune, 2010. "A restatement of the case for speed limits," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 196-204, May.
    5. Li, Feng & Srinivasan, Suraj, 2011. "Corporate governance when founders are directors," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(2), pages 454-469.
    6. Zhiyong An & Congyan Tan, 2011. "Are the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) justified?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 133-139, July.
    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. Marsden, Greg & Reardon, Louise, 2017. "Questions of governance: Rethinking the study of transportation policy," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 238-251.
    2. Erik Hysing, 2021. "Responsibilization: The case of road safety governance," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 356-369, April.

    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. E. Dobrolyubova, 2013. "How decentralization affects efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditures: review of execution of delegated powers," Public administration issues, Higher School of Economics, issue 4, pages 99-112.
    2. Knut Sandberg Eriksen, 2011. "Do road investments lead to economic growth?," ERSA conference papers ersa10p1613, European Regional Science Association.
    3. Karine Nyborg & Inger Spangen, 2000. "Cost-Benefit Analysis and the Democratic Ideal," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 26, pages 83-93.
    4. Natalia Borzino & Enrique Fatas & Emmanuel Peterle, 2015. "In Gov we trust: Voluntary compliance in networked investment games," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science (CBESS) 15-21, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    5. Nadia Loukil & Ouidad Yousfi, 2022. "Do CEO’s traits matter in innovation outcomes?," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 375-403, September.
    6. Chia-Ying Chan & Iftekhar Hasan & Chih-Yung Lin, 2021. "Agency cost of CEO perquisites in bank loan contracts," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1221-1258, May.
    7. Benedicte Millet-Reyes & Jonathan Daigle, 2025. "When private information becomes fraud: evidence from Euronext Paris," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 362-376, June.
    8. Laird, James J. & Venables, Anthony J., 2017. "Transport investment and economic performance: A framework for project appraisal," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1-11.
    9. Adanu, Kwami & Hoehn, John P. & Norris, Patricia & Iglesias, Emma, 2012. "Voter decisions on eminent domain and police power reforms," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 187-194.
    10. Asongu, Simplice A & Odhiambo, Nicholas M, 2019. "Governance,CO2 emissions and inclusive human development in Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 25253, University of South Africa, Department of Economics.
    11. Joel Slemrod & Yulia Kuchumova, 2023. "Gifts to government," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(2), pages 453-492, April.
    12. Asplund, Disa & Eliasson, Jonas, 2016. "Does uncertainty make cost-benefit analyses pointless?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 195-205.
    13. Möhlmann, Axel, 2013. "Investor home bias and sentiment about the country benefiting from the tax revenue," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 31-46.
    14. Simplice A. Asongu & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2019. "Inclusive development in environmental sustainability in sub‐Saharan Africa: Insights from governance mechanisms," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 713-724, July.
    15. Raúl López-Pérez & Aldo Ramírez-Almudio, 2020. "Why people give to their governments: The role of outcome-oriented norms," Working Papers 2007, Instituto de Políticas y Bienes Públicos (IPP), CSIC.
    16. Serel, Doğan A., 2017. "A single-period stocking and pricing problem involving stochastic emergency supply," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 185(C), pages 180-195.
    17. Kesternich, Martin & Löschel, Andreas & Römer, Daniel, 2016. "The long-term impact of matching and rebate subsidies when public goods are impure: Field experimental evidence from the carbon offsetting market," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 70-78.
    18. Jun-Koo Kang & Jungmin Kim, 2020. "Do Family Firms Invest More than Nonfamily Firms in Employee-Friendly Policies?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1300-1324, March.
    19. Adhikari, Hari P. & Sutton, Ninon K., 2016. "All in the family: The effect of family ownership on acquisition performance," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 65-78.
    20. Jonas Eliasson & Maria Börjesson & James Odeck & Morten Welde, 2015. "Does Benefit-Cost Efficiency Influence Transport Investment Decisions?," Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, University of Bath, vol. 49(3), pages 377-396, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:trapol:v:40:y:2015:i:c:p:1-7. 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/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30473/description#description .

    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.