Centralization versus decentralization of traffic law enforcement governance in Spain

Abstract

The current paper deals with the debate over centralization versus decentralization in road safety management, andspecifically in traffic law enforcement. We address the case study of Spain, where a single traffic law acquis isenforced by two systems: road policing decentralized for some regions and national road policing for all others. Oureconometricfindings reveal that the Spanish regions with centralized traffic policing present better safetyfigures,which might be useful for reinforcing the coordinated performance of road safety policy in other traditionallydecentralized countries. Furthermore, our evidence indicates that cautious analyses have to be carried out on a case-by-case basis.