Appendix E1 Question-by-Question Explanation for NHTSA LEO Survey

Appendix E1

Question-by-Question Explanation for NHTSA Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) Survey

Item	Explanation
A1 – A3	The first three questions will help us understand the LEO’s background in traffic safety enforcement.
A4	This question will help us develop a baseline for how often the LEO engages in traffic safety enforcement on a typical shift in their current assignment.
B1	This question will allow us to determine the motivating factors that led the LEO to choose their career. Individuals attracted to a career in law enforcement could be motivated by widely divergent factors. Law enforcement attracts a wide variety of people with very different backgrounds, interests, motivations, and conceptualizations about what “law enforcement” actually entails.
B2 – B3	It is important to understand if the LEO fell into the position or actively pursued law enforcement and their future career aspirations. This could help explain their motivation and dedication to the profession. There may be a difference in motivation and attitude between individuals that actively sought out a career in law enforcement as opposed to individuals that “happened upon” a career in law enforcement. Also, it is important to understand the types of work officers want to do in law enforcement which may help explain motivations and attitudes for traffic safety enforcement.
B4 – B5	These questions will help with the understanding of career goals for LEO and general areas of policing interest within their respective agency.
B6	This questions will help assess internal and external motivators in terms of traffic law enforcement. Also see how these motivations compare to the information that respondents supply in the Demographics section and with discussions from command level staff of agencies.
B7	There is value in understanding what external driver characteristics, if any, would more likely motivate a LEO to cite the driver. However, there is a concern that the LEO may be more or less likely to write a ticket due to tracking of driver characteristics rather than profiling – more concern about the perception of profiling. It’s difficult to ask a LEO is they are more likely to issue a ticket based on race/ethnicity because it can be perceived in two ways: 1) Do you have a racial/ethnic bias that would lead you to ticket certain groups more than others, and 2) Are you aware of the statistics maintained by their agency on individual officers as it relates to monitoring (for racial profiling prevention) of the proportions of racial/ethnic groups stopped and cited.
B8	Depending on the LEO’s primary assignment, a traffic stop may be seen as a tool to engage with drivers/passengers rather than to enforce a traffic safety law (pretext stop). This question will help demonstrate whether stops are made for the traffic safety purpose or traffic safety enforcement was just a tool used to make the stop.
B9	This helps identify whether LEOs are motivated to enforce the less-severe end of the traffic safety enforcement spectrum.
B10	The question is focused on motivation based on incentives. Is there a way to motivate officers to engage in traffic safety enforcement outside of compelling them to do so? If there is a way to motivate LEOs to engage in traffic safety enforcement, what is it?
B11	Does the handling of citations downstream in the criminal justice system from LEOs have an effect on their motivation to issue citations?
B12 – B13	Are officers more likely to enforce traffic laws when they first begin their careers? Are LEOs demotivated/ motivated over the years by perceived successes/failures in enhancing traffic safety through traffic law enforcement?
B14	This question has to do with fatigue. The rationale is that an officer working a long shift may be more likely to overlook a minor traffic violation to avoid the necessary paperwork to cite the driver. Or, the LEO may not want to begin a process that would not conclude until after his shift is complete, compelling him/her to stay after their shift is complete.
B15 – B17	These questions are designed to gauge the impact that fatigue has on a LEO’s motivation to enforce traffic safety laws.
C1	The purpose of this questions is to determine the extent that LEOs believe that a warning will affect future driver behavior.
C2	The purpose of this questions is to determine the extent that LEOs believe that a citation will affect future driver behavior.
C3	This question helps identify potential barriers or obstacles to LEOs enforcing traffic safety laws.
C4	Similar to the question regarding an LEO’s reluctance to issue a ticket due to inconsistent adjudication, this question will help understand their attitudes regarding the additional time burden that may be involved with enforcement of traffic safety laws. This is especially interesting if they feel that the courts are not consistent.
C5	This question provides context to an LEO’s attitudes regarding traffic safety enforcement in relation to other proactive (non-self-initiated) activity. Do officers find other proactive enforcement activities more important than traffic safety enforcement?
C6 – C7	These questions provide a better understanding of how technology assists with traffic enforcement. For example, an electronic citation issuing system would allow an officer to quickly issue citations. Does this have an impact on the number of drivers that the officer pulls over and cites?
C8	This question provides information regarding an LEO’s perception of sanctions related to traffic safety enforcement. Their attitudes regarding sanctions may have an impact on the manner in which they enforce traffic safety laws.
C9	This question will help identify what LEOs perceive to be the most important issues for traffic enforcement. By separating the stopping and the citing (next question), we may be able to gain information on which types of stops can be addressed with a warning rather than a citation.
C10	This question will help identify what LEOs perceive to be the most important issues for traffic enforcement. By separating the stopping and the citing this question may be able to gain information on which types can be addressed with a warning rather than a citation.
C11	Do LEOs who are motivated by the excitement of law enforcement perceive traffic law enforcement as exciting or engaging as some of their other core duties?
D1	Do LEOs obtain knowledge regarding traffic safety enforcement through internal agency training? Does the state/agency place a priority on this training by mandating frequent refreshers?
D2	This question is designed to assess the effectiveness of the training they receive.
D3 – D3a	As technology continues to rapidly change the car/driver experience there will be new and emerging traffic safety issues. Line LEOs may be some of the first people to identify potential problem areas and gaps in training for these emerging issues. This question will capture that information and identify possible training gaps.
D4 – D5	We discussed including an item to gather information on whether officers that are unfamiliar with a particular traffic law would decide not to stop the vehicle.
D6	This question establishes whether LEOs are aware of traffic safety enforcement resources that are most commonly available and determine whether they have accessed those resources.
D7	This item addresses potential barriers to traffic law enforcement. The overarching theme is the question of whether LEOs are more likely to enforce, and properly enforce traffic safety laws if they have the requisite knowledge to do so through training, resources and information.
E1	This question provides context to a LEO’s perspective on how much of an emphasis their agency places on traffic law enforcement.
E2 – E2b	This question provides context to a LEO’s perspective on how much of an emphasis their supervisor places on traffic law enforcement. The response to this question in conjunction with the response from the previous question could identify a disconnect between the command staff and line supervisors. The follow-up question serves to identify a disconnect between the LEO’s perspective and that of the command staff and/or the fist line supervisor.
E3	This question is slightly different than the prior ones and attempts to understand the LEO’s perspectives on traffic law enforcement along with other priorities within the agency.
E4	This question seeks to understand how agency priorities are communicated through the chain of command.
E5	This question is designed to understand whether there is a disconnect between the command and officers in terms of priorities.
E6	The purpose of this questions is to better understand the importance of traffic enforcement among command staff. This question may be problematic for someone that only works in a traffic unit. We could program this question to only appear for officers that traffic duty is not their primary function.
F1 – F6	Collection of demographic and professional information for LEO.