The doubling of fines for a range of motoring offences will have an impact for a “few weeks” at best before drivers revert to the norm, according to an expert in road behaviour.
Prof John A Groeger, from Cork but now living in Sheffield, England, says it is the fear of “being caught” rather than the size of the fine that is key to changing how people respond to road safety initiatives.
“I think it will have a short-term effect, if any effect at all,” Prof Groeger said of a doubling of fines for 16 driving offences announced last week.
“If the level of enforcement remains the same, the chance of detection remains the same… The thing that changes people’s behaviour on the road, as in most other circumstances, is the likelihood of being detected. There are a lot of different types of evidence to show that the likelihood of being caught is what is important. The size of the penalty has a minor effect by comparison.”
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Prof Groeger, a fellow of the British Psychological Society and former chair of psychology at University College Cork, has written a book on motoring behaviour – Understanding Driving. Among his more than 80 peer-researched academic papers, he has studied the brain systems involved in carrying out the task of driving including perception, attention, learning, memory, decision-making and action control.
Where fines have been substantially increased in the UK – usually by a local authority – Prof Groeger says there is a concern it is “revenue-raising exercise with potential safety benefits, but frankly the safety benefit will be minimal”.
Minister of State at the Department of Transport Hildegarde Naughton last week said the doubling of fines was being brought in on the back of an increase in road deaths. As of Thursday, 122 people had been killed on the State’s roads this year, up 11 on the same day in 2021.
‘Life-saving rules’
“These fines have not increased since they were introduced, in some cases almost 20 years ago. Increasing fines for road offences will act as a stronger deterrent to those who choose to break our life-saving rules of the road,” the Fine Gael TD said.
Motorists caught speeding will see fines go from €80 to €160, while those not wearing a seatbelt or those using a mobile phone will receive a €120 penalty, up from €60. Learner drivers will also see a hike in fines, up from €80 to €160 if found driving unaccompanied by a qualified driver, and an increase from €60 to €120 for not displaying L and N plates.
According to statistics from An Garda Síochána, there were 179,882 fines issued for speeding last year, 7,276 for not wearing seatbelts and 2,450 for the use of mobile phones while driving. The fines brought in just shy of €15 million, which would be projected to increase to €30 million under the new regime.
The Road Safety Authority was last week asked if it could identify what evidence and research specifically was considered before increasing the fines. At the time of publication, it had yet to respond.
Prof Michael Gormley, a driving expert at Trinity College Dublin, cited a number of academic research papers on the efficacy of hikes in speeding fines.
Aberrant behaviour
A 2015 paper by Australian global road safety expert Barry Watson suggests “problematic” drivers will continue to reoffend no matter what the penalty “but those who don’t have an underlined aberrant behaviour will not reoffend by being given a fine”.
A 2016 study in Switzerland – published in the European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research – looked at a 100 per cent increase in parking and speeding violation offences in five cities. In two of the cities where law enforcement agencies were on strike, the impact on speeding was small, says Prof Gormley, but there was a 17 per cent reduction in the other three cities.
“That is a very strong impact,” he says.
Prof Gormley says police enforcement levels in the three cities remained the same before and after the fine increases, but there was no commentary on the longevity of the impact.
He said a 2014 paper from the Czech Republic suggested the rate of repeat speeding offences dropped by a third after drivers were caught and this was “persistent over time” but higher fines were found to have “produced a small additional effect”.
Prof Gormley says all the research is carried out in “real-world” conditions, and that the only way to meaningfully compare the impacts of higher fines would be to “split a country in half” and have an existing fine in one, and a doubled fine in the other.
“No jurisdiction is going to do that,” he says. “But I think we can go back to the Swiss data. After the fine was doubled in those three cities, where there was consistent police monitoring, there was a 17 per cent reduction in offences. I do think that is compelling evidence.”