An empirical analysis of the characteristics of drivers who are ticketed for traffic offences

This study uses a unique individual-level dataset that merges Israeli census data with official information on traffic tickets issued over a period of seven years in order to explore the socio-demographic characteristics of drivers who receive traffic tickets. The dataset included 409,051 drivers who received a total of 830,763 traffic tickets. The results indicate that about 60% of drivers received at least one ticket during the study period. However, drivers who received tickets were not distributed evenly in society. Of those with the most tickets, 93% were male, and half were in the youngest group of drivers studied. The effect of socioeconomic status appears to differ across different types of offenses. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.