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Road safety and policing

by Mark Rowe

Since 2010, the long-term decline in the number of road deaths and serious injuries has largely ceased. That’s at least partly due to reductions in roads policing. So suggests a Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) report, ‘Roads policing and its contribution to road safety’.

It goes over the links between roads policing, compliance with traffic laws and road casualties. The report is published ahead of a cross-Whitehall review of roads policing, with an inspection report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Police and Fire & Rescue Services, and public consultation.

For the 120-page report visit the PACTS website.

PACTS Executive Director David Davies said, “The coronavirus lockdown has highlighted the importance of roads policing, with traffic speeds increasing on empty roads and worrying incidences of extreme speeding. This could have serious consequences, particularly for people following government advice to walk and cycle.

“The number of road deaths is more than twice the deaths from homicide and terrorism combined and breaches of road traffic laws are the biggest single cause of road deaths. This needs to be recognised in the government’s priorities and resources for policing. The public support more enforcement. Roads policing provides double value: tackling those who drive dangerously often disrupts wider criminality. For example, Essex police found that almost half the drug-drive offenders had previous arrest records for serious crimes such as burglary, drug dealing and violent crime.”

Among recommendations; that Police and Crime Commissioners should prioritise roads policing and road safety within Police and Crime Plans; more use should be made of technology; and that the number of roads policing officers should be increased.

The number of dedicated roads policing officers has decreased substantially. So too has the number of motoring offences detected, precipitously so for some offences such as failure to wear a seat belt. Only for speeding, where enforcement has largely been automated, has there been an increase.

Comment

Devon and Cornwall PCC Alison Hernandez is the national lead for roads policing for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC). She said: “There were 1,784 reported road deaths in 2018 according to the most recent figures available from the Department of Transport. Any number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads is unacceptable. But this number would be even worse if it wasn’t for the dedication of police officers across our counties working to protect communities.

“These officers work in the most trying conditions and experience the most horrific and traumatic incidents each and every day and we owe them all our thanks. Almost every community would call for more action to be taken to keep their family and friends safe on our roads and policing enforcement of road laws plays an essential part of that”

“Enforcement can never be the only response, but it is an important one. Police and Crime Commissioners and Chief Constables have between them the ability to prioritise resources for roads policing to support the public’s clear wish for safer roads.”

Photo: St Peter’s Bridge, Burton upon Trent, by Mark Rowe.

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