Report on motoring 2005 - conclusions

RAC believes that this year’s RAC Report on Motoring provides a timely contribution to the debate about the future of road safety in Britain.

The Report’s theme recognises that the nature of driving has changed markedly in recent history. Most of the fun, exhilaration and enjoyment seems to have gone out of driving. Whilst we can still be excited about learning to drive or perhaps buying a new car, rarely does the daily experience of making journeys hold much fun at all. Even our motorsports – popular pastimes that might remind us of the excitement that could be associated with driving seem to have become boring and predictable – mirroring perhaps the feeling of everyday motorists as they start up their engines for the grind of their daily commute.

But beyond the annoyances that accompany drivers on most journeys – those of congestion, selfish or thoughtless driving or minor prangs and scrapes – come a whole host of more dangerous driving pursuits. Some of these relate to signs of the times; the march of technology has introduced the mobile phone as an ubiquitous tool at the same time as the majority of adults now have access to a car and hold a valid driving licence. Similarly, the availability of illicit street drugs and an increase in their usage is layered across the reality of many more people wanting to drive most of the time. These, and longer standing behavioural problems that compromise road safety, such as drink driving and speeding have collided, providing profound challenges to the Government, policy makers and law enforcers who must also consider ways of encouraging motorists to drive less to tackle increasing congestion. Despite this context, what we have is a remarkably stable road safety record, but one which still reveals many thousands of deaths and serious injuries every year.

We must not become complacent about the challenge of tackling this enormous human cost, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that it’s an incredibly tough nut to crack. As we have seen, our road safety problems are many and complex and those who perpetuate poor driving behaviours are not always one type of person. Indeed, this Report identifies the fact that there is no one type of ‘British motorist’. RAC’s behavioural and attitudinal analysis shows that though we all share seven key driving traits between us, these are arranged in different volumes within six major driver types. Only three of these types seem to be guilty of the majority of driving misdemeanors, however, the task at hand to tackle these people is clearly tricky because many more drivers have unhealthy, if not dangerous, attitudes towards problems like speeding. They simply do not consider driving over the speed limit to be in the remotest way dangerous to themselves or others.

Ideally, we would need to conceive of a complex menu of measures that start to tackle these attitudes and beliefs and in so doing bring about a radical and long-term change in behaviour. This Report demonstrates that there are three major tools at our disposal: education, detection and enforcement (including penalties). Any one of these three tools taken in isolation is unlikely to crack the problem, particularly as our research shows that different driver types react to different initiatives. The clear challenge as RAC sees it is not the political difficulty that accompanies enforcing ever more stringent penalties; our research shows that despite some pretty tough penalty structures relating to certain types of driving offence, many motorists do not consider these to represent feasible deterrents to poor behaviour. As the radar seems relatively insensitive to lawless behaviour, a good number of motorists believe that they have learned to drive beneath its beam. This points to the rather sensitive issue of improving deterrents. The Report shows that for the majority of bad or dangerous driving offences, the most effective measure that could be implemented to change behaviour is increasing the number of visible law enforcers or traffic Police on our roads, a factor which up until very recently has seemed beyond Home Office resources to deliver. However, the announcement in January 2005 of a commitment to provide a highly visible Police presence on our roads should be welcomed if it is to bring with it a belief amongst motorists that their offences will not go unnoticed.

The psychology of this isn’t hard to understand; many of us feel guilty when we pass a Police car on the road or even walk through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ customs channel, whether or not we’ve done something wrong. It seems that the mere presence of authority or law enforcers is enough to make people smarten up their acts and become more conscious of their behaviour. Hence, when the speed of a stream of motorway traffic suddenly slows to the designated limit without warning, it’s likely that a Police vehicle has been spotted up ahead. It is acknowledged that increasing the Police presence is not an easy or particularly cheap option to introduce, particularly at a time when Police resources are stretched and society is exerting pressure on them to solve a whole host of other serious crimes. What it comes down to then is a question of priorities; can the huge cost of each fatal or serious accident be off-set against the savings in Police time and other resources, such as Health Services, that would result from fewer incidents? This is a question which RAC believes requires considerable thought if we are indeed serious about tackling 10 deaths a day on our roads.

If the fear of detection was to rise as a result of a more robust and visible enforcement presence, the job at hand would still not be done. As we have seen, education and penalty are both critical ingredients in the mix. You only have to look at the attitude of motorists towards hand-held mobile use and the current deterrents to see that some categories of dangerous driving behaviour still require tougher penalties. With more disposable income has come an increase in car ownership and other signs of affluence; this very factor suggests that fines alone do not change behaviour if ultimately an individual can afford to pay, or if the fines associated with transgression do not equate to the cost of adhering to the law in the first place. This is of course the case with the current fine structures for uninsured driving – a pittance when one considers the size of certain premiums that some drivers choose not to pay – which is why the more draconian approach of uplifting and crushing vehicles for perpetual or serious offenders is likely to be successful. After all, if you remove the main asset from the offender, then that will hit them where it hurts. Similarly, if you consider a different set of ‘problem offenders’ – some sections of the company car driver category – the same type of penalty is shown by our research to present a threatening deterrent. Either by removing their vehicle, their livelihood or impacting their professional reputation, you threaten to take more away than might a fine or a couple of penalty points. It is a full consideration of these sorts of levers that might be considered if we are to tackle the behaviour of some of our problem typologies.

The final strand that this Report has investigated is education. RAC believes that this is critical if we are to change deep-seated behaviours. In some sectors the idea of educating or rehabilitating offenders is seen as a soft option, but RAC disagrees with this sentiment if it comes hand in hand with better detection and appropriate penalty regimes. After all, our research has shown that not only do motorists have a blind spot when it comes to assessing their own driving behaviour, but they are also ignorant to various realities – if they have never been in a serious accident or had a loved one die in such an incident then they may believe that it will never happen to them. The success of drink drive campaigning over several decades in making this trait socially unacceptable, and the feedback from those who have changed their behaviour after attending speed awareness courses, shows that education and retraining do have a place in the mix as they can force the individual to take responsibility for their own driving actions. RAC believes that this is also a useful tool when it comes to people who drive on company business as an opportunity is there from the employer to assess and implement such schemes.

This Report has sought to combine a wealth of real world facts and data with their perception in the minds of the motorist. It is heartening that many of the current initiatives and policy suggestions that are underway are those that might enhance the success with which threats to road safety are tackled. The Road Safety Bill goes some way to dealing with some of the critical issues but our Report shows that without significant investment in enforcement, many motorists have no reasonable intention to drive legally or responsibly. Until this mindset changes, all parties involved in this area will have considerable work to do.

The RAC Report on Motoring 2005 costs £250.00.