A chance to have your say on roads policing

15 July 2020

Federation members are being given the opportunity to help shape the future of roads policing by contributing to a Department for Transport (DfT) review of roads policing.

The Dft has published a call for evidence for the review which also involves the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the Home Office.

It comes as the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads has plateaued for the last 10 years after years of declining steadily.

“While policing as a whole suffered during the years of cuts to budgets, roads policing was absolutely devastated and I think road safety suffered as a result,” says Kirsty Bunn, secretary of Derbyshire Police Federation, “This review will hopefully throw some more light on where extra investment is needed and perhaps show how we could be better using new technologies to improve road safety and tackle criminality on our roads network.”

The review will consider:

How intelligence could be better used to target dangerous behaviours
How technology can assist in enforcing road traffic law now and in the future and,
How to better understand the value of enforcement in influencing road user behaviour and the current enforcement capability.

A thematic Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspection has looked at how roads policing is currently delivered and will make recommendations for the future in its report which is due to be published soon.

Earlier this year the Government was urged to prioritise roads policing to save lives and fight wider criminality by the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) which criticised cutbacks in roads policing and pointed to a widespread belief that a failure to reduce the number of deaths on the road is at least partly due to a downgrading of roads policing.

Find out more and give evidence to the DfT review.