No Excuses – interim evaluation

This report is an interim evaluation of the additional enforcement and mass publicity undertaken as part of the year-long Dorset Road Safe Partnership project “no excuse”. Launched in mid January 2010, its goal was to contribute to improving Dorset County Council’s road casualty reduction performance, which was lagging behind that of other shire local highway authorities.

The “no excuse” project set out to try to influence certain driving behaviours that are known to contribute to serious and fatal injury collisions, including inappropriate or illegal speeding, being distracted whilst driving, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and not wearing a seatbelt. It aimed to do this by delivering an increased overt and covert police presence on Dorset’s roads and heavily publicising this activity and its outcomes on a regular basis.

The evaluation suggests the project’s key strength has been the excellent partnership working arrangements that have enabled each partner to lead on the most appropriate interventions using their skills and experience but also lend support to others in theirs. Having well-defined roles and working to strengths has made project delivery very efficient.

The exceptionally high brand recognition figures and the public’s apparently good understanding of the road safety behaviours being targeted through “no excuse” have been very encouraging and suggest the communications strategy has worked well so far.

It is less easy to argue the project’s effectiveness in influencing driver behaviour. Although the interim results suggest a marked reduction in the number of offences being detected by the “no excuse” enforcement team, further work needs to be undertaken to ensure any comparison in monthly data is robust. Further evaluation using focus group discussions and one to one in-depth interviews needs to be carried out if we are to evidence a link between a perceived increased risk of being caught and actual changed attitude and behaviour.

It is not clear yet whether the public in Dorset believe there is significantly more traffic enforcement on Dorset’s roads or whether they believe the likelihood of being caught is greater. Even less clear is whether their driving behaviour could be influenced by this increased awareness. It is, however, considered that “no excuse” has played an important role in raising awareness that road safety is every road user’s responsibility and that simply giving an “excuse” for committing a driving offence does not make it acceptable.

Focus group research was carried out in November 2011 and a link to that report can be found below.