The French Automated Speed Enforcement Programme: A Deterrent System at Work

During his presidential address in July 2002, President Chirac of France announced that traffic safety became a national priority. The French automated speed enforcement system (CA) was launched in November 2003. The implementation of CA permitted to strengthen the intensity of detection and to punish effectively speed offenders. Today roughly 1,850 speed radar devices are operating on the French road network.

The objectives of CA are in to change road users? driving choices by combining general deterrence and specific deterrence actions, and to build a consistent grid of detection on the whole territory for enforcing speed limits.

This paper presents some elements of understanding: a brief presentation of the CA, its organisation and its working. It will focus also on the impact of CA in terms of deterrence, by analysing the evolution of speed violation ratios and the effects on the mean speed.