A CORRUPT system that allows many drivers in France to escape fines for traffic offences has contributed to the country鈥檚 high accident rate, a large study suggests.
In France, it is common for traffic tickets to be cancelled after a quiet word with a friend in the local police or town council, a practice regarded as quite acceptable until recently. And if you are caught in the months before a presidential election, you can get off the hook thanks to the amnesty traditionally granted by the incoming president. A 1998 study found that a stunning one-third of penalties for serious violations had been cancelled.
As part of a wider study, Emmanuel Lagarde and his colleagues at the national medical research institute, INSERM, quizzed 13,800 people about their driving habits. Nearly a third of the men and a fifth of the women admitted 鈥渇ixing鈥� tickets.
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Those who did so were up to 66 per cent more likely to report breaking speed limits, 39 per cent more likely to drive while over the alcohol limit and 83 per cent more likely to use a mobile phone while driving (now illegal in France). They were also 21 per cent more likely to have had a serious road accident during the study period, which ended in 2001 (Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, DOI: 10.1136/jech.2003.011833). 鈥淥ur interpretation of these findings is that a feeling of impunity has a genuine impact in increasing risk-taking behaviour,鈥� says Lagarde. The study does not directly prove this, he says, but he is planning a more detailed follow-up.
Since 2002 the French government has made road safety a priority. Drivers are now treated to hard-hitting posters, and life-sized figures are placed by the roadside to represent accident victims. And on his re-election in 2002, President Jacques Chirac limited the amnesty to non-dangerous parking violations. Road-accident deaths have fallen from over 8000 a year to 5731 in 2003, but the death rate remains twice as high as the UK鈥檚.
Police and elected officials have been told to stop cancelling tickets, though no concrete measures have been taken, and Lagarde fears the practice could grow common again. 鈥淚 would like the authorities to issue some regulations to make it genuinely impossible to fix tickets,鈥� he says.