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'Needless risks' in police chases
By Dominic Casciani, Home affairs reporter, BBC News, Tuesday, 18 September 2007, 10:39
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7000318.stm

Some police officers are taking unnecessary risks in high-speed chases, a watchdog has warned.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said there were no consistent rules for criminal pursuits and called for compulsory guidelines.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has responded by announcing a review of its existing guidelines, which are currently advisory.

About 40 deaths related to police pursuits occur a year, the IPCC says.

See police-related road traffic injuries and deaths by year

In a major review of road accidents involving police officers, the IPCC said that there needed to be a rethink in how officers chase criminals in vehicles.

It criticised the 43 police forces in England and Wales for not having consistent rules governing how and when officers decided whether or not it was safe to pursue a suspect at high speed.

READ THE FULL IPCC REPORT

The watchdog said it believed codified rules, laid down by the Home Office and Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), would be significant enough to cut both deaths and serious injuries.

Since the watchdog's launch in April 2004 it has investigated 275 incidents involving 115 deaths and 273 serious injuries. Four out of 10 of those killed were not wearing a seatbelt.

The IPCC found that most accidents involved young male drivers under the influence of drink or drugs. Most police chases were triggered by traffic offences.

The IPCC said its review had found evidence of unnecessary risk taking where officers could have had an alternative way of resolving the situation.

It called for control rooms to take a more active role in whether officers should chase a suspect.

The danger is that officers initiate a pursuit and without any tactics available to end it simply wait until 'something happens'

Nick Hardwick, IPCC chair


The watchdog called on Acpo to tell forces to stop using four-wheel drive vehicles and police vans in chases except where needed for a specific tactic.

Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, said many pursuits were short and involved split-second decisions.

"The Acpo guidance on pursuit driving should become compulsory rather than advisory at present," he said.

"All of these pursuits are potentially risky and dangerous - for the drivers of the pursued vehicle, other road users and pedestrians and the police drivers themselves."

Motorcycles

Mr Hardwick said he was concerned at the number of motorcycles and mini-motorcycles now involved in accidents.

"The IPCC believes that pursuit or motorcycles can be particularly dangerous as the rider is much more vulnerable than a driver or occupant of a car and the tactical options for bringing the pursuit to an end are very limited," he said.



"The danger is that officers initiate a pursuit and without any tactics available to end it simply wait until 'something happens'."

Assistant Chief Constable Andy Holt of South Yorkshire Police, the Acpo spokesman on pursuits, said there would now be a review of guidelines ¿ but he emphasised police drivers were highly trained.

"These are professional officers working in a difficult environment often having to make split-second decisions," said ACC Holt. "We need to ensure that they have the right level of support."

He said however there were concerns from some forces over creating new compulsory rules because of a drive to cut police bureaucracy.

Police minister Tony McNulty said he welcomed Acpo's review ¿ but said that the key issue was that the majority of police chases were caused by suspects refusing to stop when requested.

Previous research

Deaths from traffic accidents involving police vehicles make up the largest single group of fatalities following "police contact".

In 2004 the IPCC's forerunner said there had been an "unacceptable death toll" from chases involving police cars. Figures then showed that police were involved in 1% of all traffic deaths in England and Wales.

The IPCC later backed calls from rank and file officers for "consistent training" for police drivers to guarantee a national high standard.

Many officers currently complained that refresher training for pursuit drivers varied widely from force to force, the IPCC added.

The IPCC investigates each of incident even if the actions of police officers played no role in the actual accident, such as when a suspect fleeing a crime scene hits a pedestrian.

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All the speed Cameras, with their resulting adverse effects, supposedly save about 100 lives a year, ignoring RTTM, so the police alone kill about 100 a year with their speeding to make up for it.
.

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 13:00 this afternoon:

PR533: IPCC report on Police crashes disappoints

news: for immediate release

The IPCC report on Police related road traffic injuries is disappointing says
the Safe Speed road safety campaign.

Commenting initially on the report, Paul Smith, founder of SafeSpeed.org.uk,
said: "I'm very disappointed that the report did not investigate training
standards. There's a wide perception that training standards are slipping at a
time when deaths and serious injuries appear to be on the rise, and the slide
in training standards is by far the most obvious explanation."

"The report highlights the need for improved risk assessments, but fails to
recognise that only the drivers on the ground will have the full breadth of
information required to conduct such a risk assessment. This is one clear area
where training could be very significantly improved."

"The overall flavour of the report is 'more of the same' when current policies
are already clearly failing to deliver an improvement."

"(Anyone who saw Panorama last evening will be aware that) Giving
responsibility to front line officers is extremely important in maximising
their performance. But the IPCC report appear to lean towards shifting even
more responsibility towards control room staff."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

BBC copy of full report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/p ... 7_ipcc.pdf

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

The Government Says

http://www.thegovernmentsays.com/comments/195906

Independent Police Complaints Commission Report (Police Road Traffic Incidents) (Tony McNulty, Minister of State (Security, Counter-terrorism, Crime and Policing), Home Office)

I can announce today that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) report on police road traffic incidents has been laid before Parliament and will be published tomorrow, Tuesday 18 September 2007.

This is the first report from the IPCC on this subject. The report provides findings from a study of cases involving serious and fatal injuries resulting from road traffic incidents involving the police between April 2004 and September 2006. It includes recommendations for police forces and the Association of Chief Police Officers for better management of police pursuits, and improvements will be made to the Association of Chief Police Officers' guidelines for the management of police pursuits.


http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2 ... 7a.128WS.1

Politics.co.uk

http://www.politics.co.uk/press-release ... 478585.htm

PSA (The Police Superintendents’ Association): Police road traffic incidents. Tuesday, 18 Sep 2007 12:24

The Police Superintendents’ Association welcomes this report from the IPCC. It is a balanced, serious and authoritative piece of research which addresses an issue of significant concern to the public and the Police Service.

‘We welcome and support the recommendations,’ said Chief Superintendent Derek Barnett, the Association’s Vice President.

‘However, whilst acknowledging the tragic consequences of any fatality or serious injury, the report does acknowledge that the vast majority of police pursuit situations are resolved without injury. Moreover, approximately 3.5 million response journeys are made each year and several million miles travelled by police vehicles that are on the road 24 hours each day.

‘The report accepts that it is rare for a member of the public to be injured by a police vehicle. Society demands that the police on their behalf apprehend criminals and those who break the law, and respond quickly to emergency situations. It is a challenge to the police service to do this with the utmost professionalism and with the safety of the public and the police officers of paramount importance.

‘In welcoming this report, we would reassert our position that there has been an erosion in the number of specialist traffic officers over recent years and there should be an increase in the number of specialist traffic officers trained to the highest standard to police our increasingly dangerous roads.’
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Police drivers take 'unnecessary risks' in car chases
Times Online, September 18, 2007 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 481479.ece

Sean O'Neill and Mark Goode

Only half the police drivers involved in high-speed chases that resulted in death or serious injury had had advanced driving training, the police watchdog reported today.

In an effort to cut the rising death toll, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has called for a mandatory code of practice for officers involved in pursuits.

It said that police officers took “unnecessary risks” when chasing suspects and that only a small number of pursuits were approved by control rooms.

The IPCC published its report just 24 hours after five people died in a collision on the M4 in South Wales caused by a car driving in the wrong direction along the motorway after a police pursuit.

There were 48 deaths in police road traffic incidents in 2005-06, 32 of which resulted from pursuits.

The report studied 275 incidents that were referred to the IPCC between April 2004 and September 2006.

The number of chases that result in death or injury is small compared to the 11,000 to 19,000 pursuits undertaken by police each year.

The findings paint a picture of young men in their twenties — often under the influence of drink and drugs — being chased at speed by male police officers in their thirties not fully trained to give chase.

In 14 per cent of the incidents studied, the drivers were aged under 16. Those being chased were often suspected of motoring offences rather than serious crimes. In one incident highlighted in the report, a police officer chased a motorcycle because its rider and pillion passenger were not wearing crash helmets. At one point during the chase, which ended in a collision, the police vehicle was just 15ft behind the motorcycle.

The report said: “The most common way for the pursuit to end was for the pursued vehicle to collide either with a wall or tree, an unrelated vehicle or street furniture.”

The 70-page report concluded: “There is a fine balance to be struck in controlling crime by, for example, dealing with someone who is driving recklessly and increasing the risk to public safety by engaging in dangerous high speed pursuit.

“If an officer decides to pursue someone there is the risk that the person will drive more recklessly to escape and therefore present greater danger to themselves and others on the road.”

Other recommendations in the IPCC report were: fitting black box data recorders to all police pursuit vehicles, banning the use of police vans and 4x4 vehicles in pursuit incidents, and stopping officers chasing motorbikes and mini-motorbikes.

Nick Hardwick, chairman of the IPCC, said: “Many of the police pursuits we deal with are of short duration and involve split-second decisions by officers. This emphasises the need for strong and clear regulation of this area of policing.”
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Are they?

By the same token then, it must be rare for a life to be "saved" by a speed camera (even ignoring RTTM effects).

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

The M4 crash, tragic as it is, had nothing to do with risky behaviour from pursuit police drivers.

_________________
Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

How many of the deaths are innocent victims and how many are criminals. Quite frankly I don't care how many thieving scrotes get killed - the more the better in fact.

I'm with you; unfortunately thay have a nasty habit of taking innocent victims with them, as in the recent M4 case.