Determining the Effectiveness of Combined High Visibility Enforcement

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines High Visibility Enforcement (HVE) as a universal traffic safety approach designed to create deterrence and change unlawful traffic behaviors. HVE combines highly visible and proactive law enforcement targeting a specific traffic safety issue. Law enforcement efforts are combined with visibility elements and a publicity strategy to educate the public and promote voluntary compliance with the law. NHTSA has funded several evaluations of combined enforcement programs with mixed results. The State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs), in conjunction with their state highway patrols and local law enforcement agencies, conduct multiple HVE campaigns throughout the year as countermeasures to road user crashes caused by impaired driving, lack of seat belt use, distracted driving, and speeding. These annual multiple campaigns are labor intensive for law enforcement agencies, and there are concerns about their effectiveness. If research could demonstrate through evidence-based data that combined enforcement efforts are indeed effective, this would have positive resource impacts on SHSOs and their law enforcement partners. The goal of this research is to develop a scalable evaluation framework and methodologies to determine the effectiveness of High Visibility Enforcement (HVE) campaigns to reduce crash frequency and severity involving road user behaviors such as impaired driving, lack of seat belt use, distracted driving, and speeding. To accomplish this goal, the project includes the following research objectives: (1) Develop products to facilitate outreach of project outcomes; (2) Develop and assess evaluation frameworks suitable to evaluate the effectiveness of HVE campaigns; (3) Identify agency practices and approaches for detecting road user behaviors to target HVE campaigns; and (4) Identify methods used by agencies to measures the effectiveness of HVE campaigns.

• Record URL:
  http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5018

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $300000
• Contract Numbers:

  Project BTS-17

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Governors Highway Safety Association

  444 N. Capitol Street, NW, Suite 722
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Project Managers:

  Retting, Richard

• Performing Organizations:

  Iowa State University, Ames

  Institute for Transportation
  2711 South Loop Drive, Suite 4700
  Ames, Iowa  United States  50010-8664
• Principal Investigators:

  Hallmark, Shauna

• Start Date: 20211101
• Expected Completion Date: 20231101
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Evaluation and assessment; Safety campaigns; Traffic law enforcement; Traffic safety
• Subject Areas: Highways; Law; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01744483
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project BTS-17
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 30 2020 12:10PM