Police and Crime Commissioners should prioritise road safety

The 29% drop in road traffic policing levels over the past decade suggests that road safety is being neglected by the police. Possibly connected to this is a fall in convictions for serious and slight motoring offences, which have dropped faster than the decline in road casualties.

This means bad driving is going unpunished or that many bad drivers are being issued with lenient sentences that do not reflect the severity of the offence.

Roads policing increases road safety

CTC believes roads policing should be given a much higher priority: there should be more and better trained road traffic police; road collisions should be thoroughly investigated and not just fobbed off as unfortunate ‘accidents’; incident reporting systems should be better designed; and all police forces should establish collision and near miss reporting systems.

These steps would ensure road safety for all road users, the most vulnerable in particular. What’s more, in addition to ensuring road safety, roads policing can help tackle other crimes by increasing the chance of catching criminals who use the roads. For more information on roads policing read CTC's campaigns briefing.

Write to your Police and Crime Commissioner

The recently elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in England and Wales are currently consulting on their policing plans. This is the ideal opportunity to draw their attention to road safety.

Road safety should be a priority for all police services, yet only one of the 42 PCCs mentioned road safety in their pre-election manifestos.

For this reason CTC has set up its ‘Road Safety – Prioritise this!’ campaign to get as many people as possible to email their local PCC asking them to prioritise road safety in their policing plans. Most consultations end in mid-February, so now is the time to make your opinions known to your PCC.