PRESENTER: Laura Šeibokaitė, Associate Professor, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania)
The purpose of penalties for road traffic offenses is to deter drivers from committing traffic rule violations, to punish for an offense that has already been committed and to change the offender’s behaviour in the future. However, it seems that penalties for traffic offences are ineffective, as drivers often violate the rules repeatedly; the rates of traffic accidents and deaths or injuries on Lithuanian roads remain one of the highest in the EU. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the perceived justice of penalties, purpose of penalties, and effectiveness of penalties between traffic offenders and regular drivers and to estimate psychological antecedents (personality traits, perceptual errors) of these attitudes towards law enforcement.
A convenience sample of 1374 Lithuanian drivers participated in the study (56.3 percent males; mean age 32.74 years; average driving experience 12.39 years). 58.3 percent of participants had no penalties for traffic offences during the last year, 24.2 percent reported monetary fines during the last year, and 17.5 percent had had their driving license suspended for traffic offence at least once in their driving career. The perceived purpose of penalties for drunk-driving, speeding and other road traffic offences was assessed. A scale containing ten specific penalties for traffic offences was developed to measure the perceived justice and perceived effectiveness of penalties. In addition, the Dark Triad personality, the BIS and BAS, and the intentions to violate the road traffic rules in the next month were measured. Ethics approval for the study was granted by the Institutional Review Board (permission No. EKL-2021.01).
Laura Šeibokaitė, a regular contributor in the activities of CIECA, will present the conclusions of this interesting study.
FURTHER DETAILS OF INTEREST FOR PARTICIPANTS:
- Time: 13 February 2025, 12:00 - 13:00 pm CET
- Fee: This members-only event is free-of-charge
- Location: online
- Working language: English
- Registration: The deadline for registrations is 11 February 2025