The endurance of the effects of the penalty point system in Spain three years after. Main influencing factors

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Abstract

In this work we have used ARIMA time series models to analyse the contribution of the penalty point system, the most important legislative measure for driving licences, in reducing the number of fatalities over 24 h on the roads in Spain during the study period (January 1995 to June 2009). In addition, because of this long period of analysis, other control variables were introduced to model the enactment of the Reform of the Penal Code in December 2007, together with other more specific effects needed to fit the model correctly. The ARIMA intervention models methodology combines the basic features of specific times series models: it controls the trend and seasonal variation in data that is present when modelling the structure through autoregressive and moving average parameters and allows for inserting step or impulse input variables for checking and evaluating the effects of deterministic measures, such as legislative changes which are the object of study in this work. This paper analyses the surveillance and control measures introduced in the periods before and after the implementation of the penalty point system and helps to partly explain its apparent endurance over time. The results show that the introduction of the penalty point system in Spain had a very positive effect in reducing the number of fatalities (over 24 h) on the road, and that this effect has endured up to the present time. This success may be due to the continuing increase in surveillance measures and fines as well the significantly growing interest shown by the news media in road safety since the measures were introduced. All this has led to positive changes in driver behaviour. It is, therefore, a combination of three factors: the penalty point system, the gradual stepping up of surveillance measures and sanctions, and the publicity given to road safety issues in the mass media would appear to be the key to success. The absence of any of these three factors would have predictably led to a far less positive evolution of the accident rate on Spanish roads.

Research highlights

▶ Application of sophisticated statistical tools: ARIMA time series analysis. ▶ Use of intervention variables to model the effect of legal measures, or special periods. ▶ Legal measures studied: penalty point system and penal code reform. ▶ The penalty point system in Spain, three years after enactment has had a very positive and lasting effect (statistically significant) in reducing fatalities. ▶ Importance of joint effect of legal measures and enforcement policies.

Introduction

The way traffic accidents have evolved and the number of victims they produce in Spain has been very satisfactory over the last few years with a considerably better improvement than that shown by most European countries. One example is the drop in the number of fatalities per million inhabitants between 2003 and 2007. While the mean figure for the 27 EU countries was 17 (from 103 to 86), in Spain it was 44 (from 130 to 85), that is, a drop that is 2.6 times higher than the European mean. It is reasonable to believe, and it will be shown by sound statistical methodology, that a major part of the decrease is due to the introduction of the penalty point system and the surveillance measures, sanctions and publicity campaign that went with it.

Before the Vienna Convention in 1993, the figures of fatalities related-accident were computed within 24 h after the occurrence, but from 1993 onwards Spain (through the Road traffic Directorate General (DGT)) as other European countries, adopted the definition of fatalities in traffic accidents as an individual who dies at the scene of the crash or within 30 days following the crash (“death up to 30 days”) and it is one of the indicators used for comparison between countries. Spain provided this data (“death up to 30 days”) through the statistical correction of the number of seriously injured people who could die within the 30 days following the crash. By analysing the evolution of the number of deaths (up to 30 days) in traffic accidents in Fig. 1, the highest figure was produced in 1989 and exceeded 7000. From that year up to 1993, there was a considerable decrease. Between 1994 and 2003 the number of fatalities stagnated, fluctuating around 5600 per year. From 2003 onwards, when the figure was 5399, significant drops have been produced in spite of spaniards continuously increasing their mobility as can be shown in the joint representation of the mortality and mobility indexes (1990 = 100) in Fig. 2.

This decreasing trend has allowed to cross the line of the goal of 40% reduction between 2003 and 2008, by application of the legal reforms, surveillance and control measures as specified in the Strategic Road Safety Plan, 2005–2008. PESV05-08 (2004).

The startup of the PESV05-08, by means of the design of the Strategic Special Measures Plan 2004–2005 brought along the creation of the National Road Safety Observatory. Thus, there appeared a combination of enforcement of offences through legal reforms of the penalties and the implementation of a penalty point system drivers license, the increase in efficiency of speed and drug and alcohol use control by means of the introduction of surveillance devices, infrastructure improvement programs, compulsory use of seat belt and helmet use for motorcyle drivers and the design of extensive awareness campaigns in the media, directed to risk populations. The main milestones since 2003 are listed in Table 1.

The daily accident data recorded for number of killed passengers within the first 24 h after the accident ocurring in Spanish inter-urban roads for the period January 1995 to June 2009 are used here to analyse the contribution of the penalty point system, the most important legislative measure for driving licences. These data are daily recorded by the Road traffic Directorate General (DGT) and are true values, i.e. not estimates as are the 30 days statistical correction. The monthly evolution represented in Fig. 3 shows a marked seasonal variation with peaks in the months of July and August and an important drop since 2004.

The drop in the last period was spread over three basic stages:

  • January 2004 to July 2006 saw a change in the monthly series level of victims. This change came about as a result of a set of measures that had been adopted the previous year, which basically consisted in developing a policy to increase the number of speed check teams, breath tests and the use of restraining systems and helmets as well as stepping up awareness campaigns and publicity in media that influence public opinion, with a special emphasis on carrying out special operations in specific periods of massive traffic. This change, which will be evaluated further on, led to changes in different aspects of mainly driver-related safety, the effects of which have endured in later periods.

  • The penalty point system came into force on 1 July 2006 as a result of the Law 17/2005 of 19 July, with two basic aims: to re-educate persistent offenders through awareness-raising and road safety courses and to penalise them by a reduction or loss of the 12 credit points initially held by a driver in possession of a driving licence from the time the aforementioned law came into effect. The loss of a certain number of points is associated with reckless conduct related to a failure to observe speed limits, carrying out high-risk manoeuvres and driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances: the more reckless the behaviour, the more the points that are lost. For speeding, drivers lose 2 points if they exceed the speed limit between 21 and 30 km/h, 3 points if they exceed this limit between 31 and 40 km/h, 4 points if their speed is 40 km/h above the limit, providing it is 50% over, and 6 points (the maximum penalty) if the maximum speed limit is exceeded by over 50%, provided the excess is at least 30 km/h. The introduction of the penalty point system led to a new change in the series level, shifting the mean and substantially modifying the seasonal variation by a significant drop in the peak figures for July and August. This change, which will be subsequently evaluated, may be attributed to the aforementioned legislative measures and the overall actions deployed to make drivers aware of their effects, as will be seen further on.

  • December 2007 saw a new change in legislation that had a large repercussion on traffic safety. This was the Reform of the Penal Code laid down in Organic Law 15/2007 of 30 November that came practically totally into force in December 2007 with the exception of driving without a licence which was applied as from May 2008. This new law was more rigorous in setting out all the offences against traffic and road safety, preventing certain behaviour classified as road violence from going unpunished. The same law opened up the way to major sanctions in the event of a licence being withdrawn for drunken driving or excess speed. The withdrawal of a licence through a court order or administrative sanction for driving without a licence is penalised with a 3–6-month prison sentence or a 12–24-month fine and community work for a period of 31–90 days in addition to a 1–6-year disqualification. For driving under the influence of toxic drugs, narcotics, psychotropic substances or alcoholic beverages (alcohol level in expired air higher than 0.60 mg/l or a blood level of alcohol over 1.2 g/l) or at excess speed (over 60 km/h over the legal limit on urban roads or 80 km/h on interurban roads), a prison sentence of 3–6 months is imposed or a 6–12-month fine or 31–90 days community work, and in whatever case, disqualification from driving motor vehicles or mopeds for a period of over 1 and up to 4 years. Until May 2009, those arrested for alcohol-related offences rose to 21,428, while those arrested for speeding offences totalled 336 and those arrested for driving without a licence were 8283.

  • September 2008 saw a new drop which was considered atypical and was extended to the following months, although less intensely, and has continued up to the present time. We can attribute this to the effects of the economic crisis, which has led to a decrease in global mobility as can be clearly seen from the drop in fuel consumption, which in 2008 was 3.89% lower than in the year before.

In this work, we focus on the effects of the introduction of the penalty point system on the evolution of road fatalities within the first 24 h, although the other factors mentioned will be included in the models. The article is organized as follows: in Section 2 we summarize the main characteristics of present-day penalty point system as well as the specific studies conducted to evaluate the PPS effects, in Section 3 we discuss the statistical tools to estimate their effect, such as intervention analysis and alternative methodologies. Section 4 presents the data description and models developed since 2007 up to the present time, using the special kind of ARIMA model with input series called an intervention model. Subsequently, Section 5 examines how surveillance and other measures have evolved, which, in the authors’ opinion, help explain the intensity of the effects of the legislative measure of the penalty point system, and more importantly, its apparent endurance over time. Finally in Section 6 the main conclusions are drawn.

Section snippets

What the bibliography says about the penalty point system effect

There is a very large number of countries that have implemented a penalty point system (in some papers it is referred to as a demerit point system or demerit points accrual). For instance, the United Kingdom was the first European country with a 12-point penalty system since 1972.

In Germany, with an 18-point scale system since 1974, the mean annual number of casualties dropped by 1%, in spite of an increase in exposure of 3.4%, and these results were evaluated as the effectiveness of a demerit

The role of intervention analysis and alternative methodologies

In this section we review the statistical literature on modelling of the time evolution of road safety variables and of the effect of measures such as the PPS. The purpose of this discussion is to justify the choice of our methodology by examining in depth the statistical tools available and select an optimal combination of these tools for our problem.

A first classification of models for time evolution of road accidents classifies into those without time dependence, such as Generalized Linear

Data description and the methodology: ARIMA intervention model

The implementation of ARIMA intervention models requires accident data and input variables defined as dichotomic variables to model intervention analysis. In this work the dependent variable z˜t is the monthly number of killed passengers within the first 24 h after the accident ocurring in Spanish inter-urban roads, provided by the Road traffic Directorate General (DGT). The period for this variable (“death up to 24 h”) comprises from January 1995 to June 2009 (174 observations). As input of the

Analysis of main influencing factors on road safety and its evolution over the period analysed

It is obvious that a legislative measure will only have an effect on road safety if changes in road-user behaviour are achieved that will enable the highest risk level behaviours to be eliminated or reduced, especially among vehicle drivers. Through the measure analysed in this paper, the PPS, it is intended to influence the behaviour of the drivers who increase accident risk, this behaviour includes excess or inadequate speed or to drive under the effects of alcohol. Many researchers agree

Conclusions

We have analysed the effects of the introduction of the penalty point system in Spain by applying ARIMA intervention models to the monthly time series of fatalities on the road over 24 h. Step input variables were used a) to examine the effect of introducing the impulse measure regarded as the causal factor behind the displacement of the series and b) to take additional effects into account such as the specific effects for the summer months in 2006 and 2007 or the Penal Code reform. These

Acknowledgements

The work described in this paper was funded by a grant from the Road traffic Directorate General (DGT: Dirección General de Tráfico) and was conducted at the Automobile Research Institute (INSIA) of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), during 2007–2009. The authors would like to thank the experts of the National Road Safety Observatory of DGT for their contribution.

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