CAPTIVE Final Report

CAPTIVE Final Report

EUROPEAN COMMISSION DIRECTORATE–GENERAL ENERGY AND TRANSPORT DIRECTORATE E – INLAND TRANSPORT COMMON APPLICATION OF TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS ENFORCEMENT (CAPTIVE) FINAL REPORT NOVEMBER 2006 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report DOCUMENT CONTROL Client: European Commission Directorate–General Energy and Transport Directorate E – Inland Transport Project: CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations M4-2913 Report: Final Report Date of Issue: November 2006 Originator: Colin Wilson with Charmaine Coutinho, Leo van den Berg, Ricard Martinez, Philipp Jordi, Gildas Baudez, Miroslav Svitek, Eric McRae, Jakub Rajnoch, Bertrand Paillard, Mick Brosnan, Jim Hammond, Andy Rooke, Susana Diaz, Jan Malenstein, Idske Dijkstra Reviewed by: Colin Wilson Authorised by: Colin Wilson November 2006 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1 1 INTRODUCTION 5 1.1 Background 5 1.2 Imposing penalties for violations of road traffic laws 7 1.3 Enforcement of penalties 8 1.4 The scale of the non-resident violator ‘problem’ 10 1.5 Why address the problem of non-resident violators now? 11 1.6 Cross-border enforcement 12 1.7 CAPTIVE – Taking a holistic view on cross-border enforcement 12 1.8 This report 13 1.9 Contacts 14 2 CURRENT STATUS OF CROSS-BORDER ENFORCEMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 15 2.1 Introduction 15 2.2 Member States’ perspectives on cross-border enforcement 15 2.3 Characteristics of agreements 16 2.4 Existing bi- and multi-lateral approaches to cross-border enforcement 17 2.5 European legislation used as a basis for existing cross-border cooperation 20 2.6 Other relevant legislation 22 2.7 Other cross-border enforcement practices 25 3 RESEARCH AND IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES 28 3.1 Introduction 28 3.2 Establishing the need for cross-border enforcement 29 3.3 Establishing the principles of cross-border enforcement 30 3.4 Potential tools to support cross-border enforcement 31 3.5 Road traffic rules and regulations 32 3.6 Impacts, attitudes and responses to road traffic rules 33 3.7 Related initiatives 33 4 BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE CROSS-BORDER ENFORCEMENT IN EUROPE 35 4.1 Introduction 35 4.2 Legal barriers 35 4.3 Organisational barriers 38 4.4 Operational barriers 39 4.5 Miscellaneous barriers 41 4.6 Issues specific to non-financial penalties for further analysis 41 5 ESTABLISHING EFFECTIVE CROSS-BORDER ENFORCEMENT IN EUROPE 46 5.1 Introduction 46 5.2 Aims of cross-border enforcement in Europe 46 5.3 Cooperation and compatibility 47 5.4 Origins of a common approach 47 November 2006 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report 5.5 A ‘common approach’ 48 6 A PLAN TO IMPLEMENT THE COMMON APPROACH 51 6.1 The need for an Implementation Plan 51 6.2 Realities of implementation 52 7 CAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN - PREPARATORY AND SUPPORT ACTIONS 54 7.1 Introduction 54 7.2 Step 1 -Coordination and management 54 7.3 Step 2 - Stakeholder participation 56 7.4 Step 3 - Political support 58 8 CAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN – DEFINING AND AGREEING THE COMMON APPROACH60 8.1 Introduction 60 8.2 Step 4 - Agreeing the vision for cross-border enforcement 60 8.3 Step 5 - Agreeing the common approach to cross-border enforcement 61 8.4 Step 6 – Defining the common operational procedures 62 8.5 Step 7 – Defining requirements 63 9 CAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN - ESTABLISHING THE LEGAL BASIS 65 9.1 Introduction 65 9.2 Step 8 – Establishing the legal basis the common approach 65 9.3 Achieving a common approach in an operational environment 68 9.4 Interim steps 73 10 CAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN –STANDARDS AND TOOLS 77 10.1 Introduction 77 10.2 Step 9 – Supporting standards and tools 77 11 CAPTIVE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN - IMPLEMENTING, OPERATING AND MONITORING THE COMMON APPROACH 82 11.1 Introduction 82 11.2 Step 10 - Implementing and operating the common approach 82 11.3 Step 11 - Monitoring and feedback 83 12 CONSOLIDATED FIVE YEAR IMPLEMENTATION PLAN 84 12.1 Introduction 84 12.2 Preparatory and support actions 84 12.3 Defining and agreeing the common approach 86 12.4 Establishing a legal basis for the common approach 88 12.5 Defining and developing supporting standards and tools 88 12.6 Implementing, operating and monitoring the common approach 89 13 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 92 13.1 Addressing non-resident violators today 92 13.2 The way forward – cooperation and coordination 92 13.3 A plan for implementation 92 13.4 Summary of the CAPTIVE recommendations 93 November 2006 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The importance of cross-border enforcement Improving compliance with road traffic laws is a fundamental part any EU Member States’ road safety strategy and is a priority issue for the European Commission as it seeks to achieve its ambitious target of halving the number of people killed on roads in Europe by 20101. Where road users fail to comply with road traffic laws, Member States’ national legislation allows them to apply a range of financial and non-financial penalties to deter non-compliance in the future. Historically, Member States’ procedures for setting, imposing and enforcing these penalties have been designed to deal with violators who reside in the State where they commit the road traffic violation. However, since the foundation of the European Union on 1 May 1993, there has been an increase in cross-border traffic and as an inevitable consequence, an increase in the number of road traffic violations committed by so-called ‘non-resident violators’ who are: • natural persons who do not reside in the Member State where they committed the violation, whose vehicle is not registered in the Member State where they committed the violation or whose driving licence is not issued in the Member State where they committed the violation; or • legal persons whose licence to operate a vehicle is not issued by the Member State where the violation was committed. Implementing the same enforcement regime used for resident violators raises many legal, organisational, procedural and penalty-specific issues which in many cases, are difficult to successfully address. As a consequence, penalties are rarely imposed and enforced on non-resident violators. This is in complete contrast to the ‘principle’ of non-discrimination as enshrined in Article 12 of the EC Treaty. Regional approaches With a few notable exceptions, cross-border enforcement has historically had a low priority on States’ political agendas. There have, however, been a few attempts to establish bi- or multi-lateral agreements between countries to assist in the imposition and enforcement of penalties on non- resident violators. These agreements have typically originated where a country has a high proportion of non-resident violators from another, often neighbouring country, or where due to its geographic situation, a country’s traffic composition includes a significant proportion of transiting traffic. 1 White Paper – European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to Decide, Part 3, European Commission, September 2001 November 2006 Page 1 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report A common approach to cross-border enforcement Building on best practice from these regional approaches, CAPTIVE was initiated to identify the steps that could be taken at a European level to implement a pan-EU approach to cross-border enforcement involving all Member States. The project’s primary research findings echo those from earlier Commission research projects such as VERA and VERA2 - the basis for implementing effective cross-border enforcement across the EU has to be: consistent, effective and structured cross-border cooperation between Member States. Establishing the degree of consistency and structure necessary will require States to adopt a ‘common approach’ to cross-border enforcement. This approach would define which enforcement processes need to be undertaken in a common way and in accordance with common operational standards. It would not seek to prescribe or harmonise States’ own enforcement processes – rather, the common approach seeks to ensure that States can easily cooperate with each other for the purposes of cross-border enforcement as and when necessary. CAPTIVE has prepared an initial view of such a common approach. It comprises three elements: • common operational procedures that have to be carried out the same way in each Member State and which facilitate State-State cooperation • transitional elements which will allow State’s national enforcement procedures to work seamlessly with the common operational procedures • common standards of operation which specify the minimum standard to which the common operational procedures must be performed by all States. CAPTIVE considers this common approach to be fundamental to establishing effective cross-border enforcement across the EU. It has therefore used it as the basis for its formal definition of cross- border enforcement which is: “The application of operational procedures and standards to allow the imposition and enforcement of penalties on violators2 of road traffic laws who do not reside in the State where they committed the violation, whose vehicle is not registered in the State where the violation was committed or whose driving/operating licence is not issued by the State where the violation was committed3” A plan for implementation Implementing a common approach to cross-border enforcement across the EU-25 will be a major task, the scale of which should not be underestimated. It will require multiple actions undertaken at different levels (ie pan-EU, regional, national and local) by different stakeholders and with a range of different timescales. CAPTIVE has therefore defined a five-year Implementation Plan which identifies 2 For the purposes of CAPTIVE, ‘violator’ is taken to mean the same as ‘offender’ 3 Words in italics have been changed compared with VERA2 version November 2006 Page 2 CAPTIVE - Common Application of Traffic Violations Final Report the actions necessary to implement the common approach and the supporting management and coordination structure necessary to ensure consistent delivery.

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