Determinants of traffic safety enforcement behaviour among police officers: A narrative review

Abstract

Traffic safety enforcement (TSE), which includes policing of traffic laws, is a key component of safe transport systems. Effective TSE depends on law enforcement professionals’ (i.e., police officers’) ability and willingness to proactively engage in TSE activities. By conducting a narrative review of past literature, this article documents (i) factors reported to influence law enforcement professionals’ willingness to engage in TSE, and (ii) policy recommendations to improve TSE and thus traffic safety. The extensive literature review presented in this report identified four main types of factors that influence officers’ willingness to engage in TSE: (i) individual-level factors (e.g., officers’ perceptions of TSE), (ii) situational factors (e.g., traffic offenders’ demographic characteristics), (iii) organization-level factors (e.g., traffic citation quotas), and (iv) community-level factors (e.g., political influence). Policy recommendations to improve TSE recognized that a country’s economic condition poses significant barriers to effective TSE. Results of this literature review summarize and provide insights into factors that influence TSE and can be used by road safety professionals, including transport engineers and law enforcement professionals, to improve TSE efforts and outcomes.