Routes to Speed Safety: Understanding and measuring the contribution of Community Speed Watch Report to the Road Safety Trust

Staffordshire University provided an evaluation of the effectiveness of Community Speed Watch (CSW) throughout Gloucestershire to help engage with drivers and communities around the issue of speed. The project used a mixed methods approach combining focus groups and interviews with survey and CSW activity speed data to explore the use and effectiveness of CSW and CSW+ in reducing speeds, empowering communities and influencing perceptions of legitimacy and safety

Keeping up, and keeping on: Risk, acceleration, and the law-abiding driving offender

Roads policing has been described as “the public face of the police” for many citizens (Corbett, 2008a:131), but fails to excite much criminological interest. This is despite the fact that vehicle use is the most likely generator of an adverse-outcome encounter between the general public and the police (Corbett 2008b:13) and is therefore one of the most likely situations in which individuals are confronted with their own ‘law-abidingness’ or lack of it. The paper will propose that the concepts of ‘risk’ (as a political as well as sociological concept) and ‘acceleration’ (of technological change, as well as everyday life) can be used to explain the controversial and apparently unsettling image of roads policing in recent years. This paper reflects on how speeding offences (researched between 2002- 2006) and mobile phone use by drivers (researched between 2013-2016) reveal much about how drivers see themselves, their priorities, and the law

Taking the right course: the possibilities and challenges of offering alternatives to prosecution for drivers detected using mobile phones while driving

There is a considerable body of literature that outlines the dangers of mobile phone use by drivers. However, there is very little research that explores the role and effectiveness of attempts to tackle this specific road user problem. Generally, normative motives are more likely to generate compliance with traffic law, and are more likely to be developed through approaches which focus on engagement and education. There would seem to be little potential for them to be developed through the use of penalty points and fines, which rely on more instrumental logic. Nonetheless, the decision was made in the UK in recent years to cease offering ‘courses’ (inputs to detected phone-using drivers offered as an alternative to prosecution) for mobile phone offences. This decision was made despite a lack of evidence one way or another about their effectiveness in tackling both handheld mobile phone use and handsfree mobile phone distraction – a form of distraction not explicitly covered in law. This research project aimed to explore driver education as an alternative to prosecution for mobile phone use while driving offences, focusing on perceptions and experiences of one particular educational intervention. This paper draws on 46 semi-structured interviews with those involved in delivering a specific intervention aimed at reducing handheld mobile phone use by drivers that was previously offered as an alternative to prosecution in the UK; the police officers identifying offenders for referral to such courses, those delivering the intervention, drivers attending the course as an alternative to prosecution and members of the public attending the course as general education. Four key themes, with underpinning subthemes, emerged; 1) Police officer discretion and entry into the criminal justice system 2) Police-public interactions, 3) Course experiences, and 4) Post-course considerations. Firstly, police officer discretion is an important determinant of criminal justice system outcome, based on subjective rather than legal decisions about whether or not to report drivers for an offence. Secondly, police officers negotiate encounters with road users using the avoidance of prosecution as a way of diffusing difficult conversations, sometimes by offering a course as a preferable alternative to prosecution, sometimes by encouraging handsfree phone use. Thirdly, course attendance provides an opportunity to develop both normative alignment through increased understanding of police work, and to appreciate a range of instrumental consequences associated with mobile phone use. Both self-reportedly impacted upon mobile phone use while driving. Finally, post-course considerations emphasised a focus on who should be offered courses as an alternative to prosecution, focusing upon desires for both punitive and rehabilitative responses to mobile phone using drivers

The Inconvenient Truth About Mobile Phone Distraction: Understanding the Means, Motive, and Opportunity for Driver Resistance to Legal and Safety Messages

The research evidence around distraction caused to drivers by mobile phone use is clear. Phone using drivers are four times more likely to be involved in a collision, are far less likely to notice and react to hazards, take much longer to react to any hazards they do notice and can look at hazards yet fail to see them. These findings relate equally to handsfree and handheld use. It is also clear that drivers are often resistant to these research findings and that self-reported mobile phone use by drivers is increasing. This paper combines a review of what is currently known about the dangers of mobile phone use by drivers with what research tells us about the ways drivers think about themselves, the law, and their risk of both crashing and being prosecuted. We blend these insights to explain why research evidence may be resisted both by drivers and policy makers, highlighting the inconvenient truth that is the distraction caused by mobile phone use

Policing the COVID-19 pandemic: police officer well-being and commitment to democratic modes of policing

Police organisations have a wealth of experience in responding to emergencies, but COVID-19 is unprecedented in terms of the speed, scale and complexity of developing doctrine and its implementation by officers. The crisis also threw into sharp relief the fact that police policy and, crucially, practice are always implemented within wider social, political and economic contexts. Using online survey data collected from 325 police officers based at forces operating across different UK contexts (cities, conurbations, towns and rural areas), we seek to understand officer experiences and perceptions of policing COVID-19. In particular, we examine whether (internally) organisational climate and (externally) the UK government’s response to COVID-19 were important to (a) officers’ support for police use of force at times of emergency, (b) officer’s support for procedurally just policing at times of emergency, and (c) their health and well-being; and whether identification and perceptions of self-legitimacy mediate the associations between these variables. We show that a positive organisational climate was associated with less support for police use of force, more support for procedurally just policing and increased police officer health and well-being. Our results, however, suggest potential negative correlates of police officer self-legitimacy: higher levels of self-legitimacy were associated with poorer police officer health and well-being and increased support for police use of force. These results have important implications for our understanding of police officer well-being and police officers’ commitment to democratic modes of policing when faced with policing a pandemic

How do police officers talk about their encounters with ‘the public’? Group interaction, procedural justice, and officer constructions of policing identities

Despite widespread empirical support for Procedural Justice Theory, understanding of the role of police psychology in shaping encounters with ‘citizens’ is relatively opaque. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature by exploring how officers talk about themselves, their colleagues and deploy social categories to understand their interactions with ‘the public’. The qualitative thematic analysis draws upon 22 semi-structured interviews conducted with officers in various roles and teams within a large metropolitan police force in England. Our thematic analysis demonstrates the centrality of procedural fairness in officer talk (in terms of internal relations with colleagues and external relations with ‘the public’). Interviewees described complex internalised theories of social relations, differentially positioning themselves in relation to other colleagues and multiple ‘publics’ often depicted along socioeconomic and geographical lines. Officers described their interactions with ‘the public’ in sequential and historical terms with complex and changing (often intergroup) power dynamics. Implications of the analysis for understanding the role of social identity processes among police officers and how this underlying conceptualisation might shape police-‘citizen’ encounters are discussed

Policing Distracted Driving

This book draws on original research and existing theoretical perspectives and frameworks to critically examine the role of roads policing and its place within the wider field of policing. It looks at the challenges and complexities of doing roads policing and experiencing roads policing from the perspectives of police officers and the public. It uses distracted driving, and more specifically mobile phone use, as an evidence-based case study for a common issue to examine the contribution it makes to collisions, and the challenges of policing it as a driver behaviour. It also discusses broader issues such as the role of roads policing, police legitimacy, the interpretation of law, the interpretation of risk and generating compliance with the law. It speaks to both policing scholars and practitioners, as well as policy makers and road safety organisations

Policing Distracted Driving Contemporary Challenges in Roads Policing

Uses distracted driving as a case study to critically examines the nuanced complexities of roads policing Draws on empirical data about mobile phone use, as well as sociological, criminological and psychological theories Makes practical recommendations informed by the application of a range of contemporary, theoretical lense

Taking the right course: the possibilities and challenges of offering alternatives to prosecution for drivers detected using mobile phones while driving

There is a considerable body of literature that outlines the dangers of mobile phone use by drivers. However, there is very little research that explores the role and effectiveness of attempts to tackle this specific road user problem. Generally, normative motives are more likely to generate compliance with traffic law, and are more likely to be developed through approaches which focus on engagement and education. There would seem to be little potential for them to be developed through the use of penalty points and fines, which rely on more instrumental logic. Nonetheless, the decision was made in the UK in recent years to cease offering ‘courses’ (inputs to detected phone-using drivers offered as an alternative to prosecution) for mobile phone offences. This decision was made despite a lack of evidence one way or another about their effectiveness in tackling both handheld mobile phone use and handsfree mobile phone distraction – a form of distraction not explicitly covered in law. This research project aimed to explore driver education as an alternative to prosecution for mobile phone use while driving offences, focusing on perceptions and experiences of one particular educational intervention. This paper draws on 46 semi-structured interviews with those involved in delivering a specific intervention aimed at reducing handheld mobile phone use by drivers that was previously offered as an alternative to prosecution in the UK; the police officers identifying offenders for referral to such courses, those delivering the intervention, drivers attending the course as an alternative to prosecution and members of the public attending the course as general education. Four key themes, with underpinning subthemes, emerged; 1) Police officer discretion and entry into the criminal justice system 2) Police-public interactions, 3) Course experiences, and 4) Post-course considerations. Firstly, police officer discretion is an important determinant of criminal justice system outcome, based on subjective rather than legal decisions about whether or not to report drivers for an offence. Secondly, police officers negotiate encounters with road users using the avoidance of prosecution as a way of diffusing difficult conversations, sometimes by offering a course as a preferable alternative to prosecution, sometimes by encouraging handsfree phone use. Thirdly, course attendance provides an opportunity to develop both normative alignment through increased understanding of police work, and to appreciate a range of instrumental consequences associated with mobile phone use. Both self-reportedly impacted upon mobile phone use while driving. Finally, post-course considerations emphasised a focus on who should be offered courses as an alternative to prosecution, focusing upon desires for both punitive and rehabilitative responses to mobile phone using drivers

The inconvenient truth about mobile phone distraction: understanding the means, motive, and opportunity for driver resistance to legal and safety messages

The research evidence around distraction caused to drivers by mobile phone use is clear. Phone using drivers are four times more likely to be involved in a collision, are far less likely to notice and react to hazards, take much longer to react to any hazards they do notice and can look at hazards yet fail to see them. These findings relate equally to handsfree and handheld use. It is also clear that drivers are often resistant to these research findings and that self-reported mobile phone use by drivers is increasing. This paper combines a review of what is currently known about the dangers of mobile phone use by drivers with what research tells us about the ways drivers think about themselves, the law, and their risk of both crashing and being prosecuted. We blend these insights to explain why research evidence may be resisted both by drivers and policy makers, highlighting the inconvenient truth that is the distraction caused by mobile phone use