TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter deals with the increasing role of the traffic engineer in detecting and penalising drivers' contraventions of motoring law. In the past enforcement was, more or less, the exclusive preserve of the police service using the criminal law; however, as traffic levels and the number of offences have increased and police resources and priorities have changed, it has been recognised that the police service has become unable, or unwilling to devote sufficient resources to the enforcement of minor traffic offences. Further there has been a recognition that perhaps the structure and cost of the criminal law process was perhaps inappropriate for the types of offences being dealt with. In simple words, the system was costing too much and was not able to cope with the increasing levels of minor offences being committed.
By the early 1980s, a driver probably had about a 1% chance of having a minor offence, such as parking illegally, being detected. However, although such offences were minor themselves, their consequences could be far reaching. For example, in some city centres illegal parking reached a level where the safe flow of traffic could no longer be maintained and as a result the emergency services were finding that they could not reach buildings to deal with fires and injured people. There is no doubt that because of illegal parking people died who might have otherwise been saved.
In the past, there was a fairly clear line between the responsibilities for providing and maintaining...
