Legitimacy, Fairness, and Distracted Driving

This chapter focuses on the issues of fairness and legitimacy in the context of instrumental and normative compliance. As a context in which so many police/public encounters occur, roads policing sits at the frontline of generating interactions that impact the way drivers see the enforcement of road traffic law, but also how they see policing more generally. The opportunity presented by educational diversion courses is discussed in terms of (a) its value in helping officers negotiate potentially tricky roadside encounters; (b) its potential to communicate accurate safety messages to those caught using their mobile phones while driving, and (c) for its role in promoting the importance and legitimacy of roads policing more generally.