Issue #241 Fixing Broken Windows | Traffic, Broken, Enforcement, Police, Crime

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Issue #241 Fixing Broken Windows

Written by Robert Smith
Thursday, 08 May 2008
In his best selling book, The Tipping Point, former Toronto resident Malcolm Gladwell describes how New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his police chief, William J Bratton came to grips with runaway crime in the 1990s. The statistics are impressive: homicide rates fell from 2,154 in 1992 to 770 in 1997. Similarly, there were 626,182 serious crimes in the Big Apple in 1992. Five years later, there were fewer than 355,000. Demographic, economic and social factors have all been credited with helping this turnaround, but Gladwell attributes NYC’s success in taming serious crime to the “broken window” effect, a term coined by sociologist James Q Wilson. Imagine a warehouse building with a broken window. If that window isn’t repaired, it isn’t long before a few more get smashed; and so on until few panes remain intact. Gladwell writes that criminal activity is “context sensitive,” and that, to some extent, the environment creates the crime. If it seems to be acceptable for a window to remain broken, then the context is that no one cares, and that smashing windows is acceptable behaviour. During his tenure as chief of NYC’s transit police, Bill Bratton clamped down on the widely accepted practice of fare evasion. He also maintained a zero tolerance policy on graffiti. During this period, the number of serious crimes on the subway system—violent assaults, robberies etc—also fell dramatically. Bratton went on to be NYC police chief, and is credited with the reduction in the city’s crime rate, focusing on highly visible crimes, petty or not, that seemed to make criminal activity on the streets acceptable: aggressive panhandling, street drug deals, littering, squeegee kids. Bratton fixed the “broken windows”—and cut serious crime by two-thirds in the process. A COUPLE OF WEEKS BACK, I WAS RIDING HOME FROM A FRIEND’S house on a dark, wet night. Driving ahead of me on the four-lane highway was a small Toyota with no lights on. I flashed the driver a couple of times with my high beams, but my intended message didn’t register. A police cruiser was behind me, so I pulled over to let him pass. We drove for maybe five kilometres in formation, the Toyota, the police cruiser and me. Whether the cop was busy or whether he just didn’t care, he made no attempt to alert the Toyota driver that his lights were out. Enforcement agencies across the country are stepping up their programs to curb high-risk activities on the road, and I applaud that effort. But I don’t necessarily agree with their methods. Enforcement is one thing, but entrapment is another. Ask most riders about how they got a speeding ticket, and the answer will likely be that it was a roadside speed trap in an area where the speed limit is either questionably low or changes frequently. A favourite spot in Vancouver is on the Knight Street Bridge, where the limit drops from 80 to 60 to 50 in around a quarter of a mile. Strange, too, how the radar seems to get most use on warm, sunny days, not when it’s pouring rain—when crash rates are often higher. Perhaps what’s needed is for enforcement authorities to adopt a “context sensitive” approach to policing traffic, paying attention to the infractions that are no longer enforced—but still remain moving traffic offences: the “broken windows.” I’ve watched traffic cops look on as drivers turn right on a red without even slowing down, let alone stopping. Drivers using cellphones are ignored, even though they’re clearly driving “without due care and attention.” Most drivers ignore intersection stop signs, have no idea of the correct procedure when turning left at a traffic signal, and routinely stop on crosswalks. I once tried totting up the number of cars I saw on each evening journey with one head, tail or brake light out, but I soon lost count. Obviously the enforcement branch doesn’t see a defective headlight as a problem. There couldn’t be a better example of a broken window. Traffic enforcement authorities have an almost impossible job to do: few would argue with that. But neither do they make the laws, and what’s good for one offence is good for another. Picking and choosing which regulations to enforce and which ones to ignore creates a confusing regulatory environment. “Cherry picking” high profile or high revenue generating offences and ignoring the minor infractions seems to me to promote an adversarial climate in which motorcyclists feel targeted. But at the same time, it’s de facto acceptable to bend, break or completely ignore other rules that were put in place for good reason. There’s also a noticeable creep, a subtle shifting in driving standards on the road. Over the last 20 years, I’ve watched drivers pushing the boundaries further and further, especially around stop signs and red lights. More windows are being broken all the time. For example, perhaps it’s time to withdraw the privilege of turning right on a red light. That would save many pedestrian injuries and deaths each year in our cities for sure. Riding a motorcycle on city streets is a pretty hazardous activity, and I sometimes consider whether it’s still a sane thing to do. I cringe every time I see a car nosing into an intersection and instinctively reach for the brake when a left-turner rolls forward as I’m about to cross a traffic signal. Sure, speed is an issue in many traffic crashes; but perhaps enforcing those apparently inconsequential offences—the broken windows—would encourage a greater respect for traffic regulations overall. Think it’s going to happen? Neither do I. Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Write comment You must be logged in to a comment. Please register if you do not have an account yet.