Safe Speed Forums

Agency copy:

The number of people who died in road accidents involving police cars
increased by more than a fifth last year, it was revealed today.
A record 44 were killed in England and Wales, up eight from last year and
more than two and a half times the 17 recorded in 2000/01.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) listed a total of 106
deaths during or after contact with officers last year.
"We are concerned about the increase in the number of road traffic-related
deaths," said IPCC chairman Nick Hardwick.
"This year there were a larger number of people killed but in a lower number
of incidents."
He added: "There is an issue for public debate here - when you dial 999 you
want the police to get there quickly, but there is a degree of risk involved
in that.
"We have to have an intelligent debate about what degree of risk is
acceptable and in what circumstances."
The youngest of all the recorded deaths was a 13-year-old girl who died in
the Thames Valley force area in August last year.
She was a pillion passenger of a disqualified motorcyclist who crashed into a
lamp-post after being spotted by police.
The oldest was a 90-year-old woman motorist who died in Lancashire when a
police car collided with her vehicle.
Of the 44 deaths, 23 were in police pursuits, six involved police vehicles
answering 999 calls and 15 were listed as "other".
The overall total also included three fatal police shootings.
The IPCC has taken over compiling figures on deaths in police custody from
the Home Office, and because different methods are used it is difficult to
compare this year's figures with the previous 12 months.
Under the old system, 38 road deaths were recorded and exactly 100 deaths in
custody overall, with 104 in 2002/03.
Mr Hardwick also voiced concerns over the number of mentally ill people who
died in police custody because officers had been called to act as "social
services of the last resort" to deal with them.
"I don't think the appropriate place for people with mental health problems
is police custody suites," he said.
"It happens far too often and it is a matter of major concern for us.
"A lot of them die because they don't get the care they need.
"There should be more appropriate facilities within the health service for
people who have got these problems."
IPCC commissioner Nick Long praised a scheme in Bradford which had seen a
rise in the number of care beds for the mentally ill, so fewer were ending
up in custody.
The Metropolitan Police had the largest number of deaths with 14, followed by
West Yorkshire (eight) and Greater Manchester (seven).
Six forces had none - City of London, Cumbria, Durham, North Yorkshire,
Staffordshire and Wiltshire.
end

=====================================

Safe Speed issued the following PR at 11:56 this morning:

PR257: Police crashes up again

news: for immediate release

Figures released by the Independent Police Complaints Commission indicate a
further worrying rise in death involving Police vehicles.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "There will be calls for further restrictions on
Police activity, but that is entirely the wrong solution. This is a training
issue. We learned the lesson over 60 years ago when the Police Driver training
establishment at Hendon demonstrated early success. It worked. Accidents
involving Police went down and down and stayed down. We have cut back training
and accidents are going up. No one who knows anything about road safety should
be surprised, but those responsible for the blunder must be held to account."

The Police driver training establishment at Hendon was founded in the 1930s to
deal with worrying trends in Police road crashes. Hendon became the envy of
the world and Hendon developed driving techniques have been exported to over
100 countries. Hendon methods also spawned the IAM and RoSPA advanced drivers
association. Without the strong cultural influence of Hendon we would not have
earned the safest roads in the world.

In the early 1990s, the earlier system of Police driver grading
was abandoned. 'Class 1' standard was replaced with 'Police Advanced'. Pass
rates for Class 1 drivers used to sometimes fall as low as 20%, ensuring
selection of appropriate ability and especially those individuals who could
best remain composed and professional under extremes of pressure. 'Police
Advanced' aims for a 100% pass rate which does not allow for deselection of
those trainees exhibiting less appropriate attitudes.

Loss of training standards apply across driver levels and across Police
forces. But since training courses are defined on a 'by force' basis it is
difficult to make specific comments.

<ends>

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

You're certainly right about the training but why are they trying to increase the figures? 3 shootings? What does that have to do with police driving?
Of the 41 remaining, 23 were pursuits but they don't say if they were the pursued. If they were, then they can be ignored as well.
We're now left with 6 on 999 calls and 15 'other' which presumably are non-emergency related accidents. If that's what they actually are then how many of the drivers would have had hendon training under the old system?

Oh how tragically aligned with recruitment and training policies for other professional public service organisations this is. We are going to pay for this 'they shall not fail' mentality in the long run in fact, as the story illustrates, we aleady are

So about 1.5% of road fatalities are related to police vehicles. In the 3% of casualties caused by or involving drivers driving in excess of the speed limit, what percentage of those police vehicle related deaths were included in that 3% 'vehicles exceeding the speed limit'. This final percentage can then be removed from the 3% to give a more accurate figure for non-police drivers who are involved in accidents whilst driving in excess of the posted limit. The aim of this is to determine what true percentage of accidents the cash-cameras can effect.

Hi all,

So 3% of casualties are caused by vehicles exceeding the speed limit, and that's across the whole road network. Therefore for speed cameras to achieve anywhere near a 3% reduction, there would have to be a camera every 1/2 mile on every single road in the country.

Some rough figures - 6000 cameras x 1/2mile = 3000 miles. What is 3000 miles as a percentage of total road length in the UK?

375,000Km = 235,000 miles of road.

3000/235,000 = 1.2%

But I think it's much smaller because cameras normally only do one direction, most of the talivan site are unoccupied and most of the fixed post gatsos have no camera fitted.

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

I hadn't thought about that.

I found your figures on another thread.




So 0.011% of the original 3% is 0.00033%.

3200 deaths per year x 0.00033% = 1.056 lives saved.

Is that right?

There are many issues here, but there is one that really gets me.
Take a road with a 30 limit, which the local population have used quite safely for years at 40m.p.h. One fatal, and a camera goes up- even when that fatal was a police vehicle in pursuit, responding to a 999 or whatever.
Anyone remember the pile-up a few years back, when a car full of police doing 100m.p.h. in the wet came round a bend on a dual carriageway and smashed into the back of a load of stationary vehicles? Numerous deaths and injuries. The police vehicle was being driven by an instructor who was training his passengers in high speed driving.!! Or, more recently, the motorway pile-up involving 4 police cars (and no-one else)?
There is still too much of a "Starsky and Hutch" mentality, and far too few police drivers practice what they hypocritically preach.

No, I think there are far too many simplifications in this line of argument. For example:

* Traffic, camera and crashes are far from evenly distributed across the road network.

* The effects of cameras (mostly negative effects as it happens) extend way beyond camera sites.

* Even at camera sites the effects are hard to evaluate because of RTTM and traffic displacement effects. See http://www.safespeed.org.uk/gambling.html and http://www.safespeed.org.uk/rttm.html

* There's more I'm sure but that's really enough to kill the argument as it stands.

BUT, it is true to say that the 'benefits' of cameras are only present on a tiny proportion of the road network.

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

A slight diversion here but I have just been listening to a call for police officers to be routinely armed following the shooting the other day.

You can't help think that the temptation for misuse will be huge. Just like some officers who misuse their police cars and privileges there will be those that do the same with guns. Just imagine, it's pub chucking out time at (soon to be) 3 a.m. A youth abuses a police officer in a threatening way. The officer shoots him dead - just to be on the safe side, he might have been armed.

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

obviously this happens all the time in countries with armed police...
I'm amazed I've survived for so long.

I realise that calculating an accurate 'number of lives saved' is not really possible, but I am surprised how low that figure could potentially be once everything is taken into account.

Back to the original thread ... Police road deaths are up... with less police means that standards have slipped even farther than the raw numbers sugest.

Something is very wrong. They are taking too many risks. being too aggressive , trying to use too much technology whilst driving, not getting enough training. Driving too fast to meetings on blue lights.

_________________
Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Maybe the pressure on shrinking numbers of officers out on the streets to deal with an increasing number of jobs is part of the problem?

_________________
Less Kodak, more Kojak.
In times of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Always used to see Traffic Cars with two officers in.

Around here they all seem to have only one officer ( unless armed response ).

So instead of one officer concentrating on driving and one on radio, giving directions, additional pair of eyes at junctions etc, the driver has to do all of this.

Thats in addition to training being cut back.

Front page headline news in my local free Sunday paper claims that last year 2,519 police cars were caught on speed cameras in my county, Bedfordshire (which by the way is one of the smallest in the country).

This figure includes marked and unmarked cars on routine patrol as well as responding to emergency calls.

They sent out 46 NIPs but only six officers and two members of staff had licences endorsed with three penalty points and £60 fine. One further officer was actually prosecuted and got a 28 day driving ban.

The point the paper is making is the odds of being prosecuted.

Are other counties harder on their police drivers or is it that our lot just drive faster?

_________________
Shooting is good for you and too good for some people.

MCN did a great article on this a couple of months back- the classic was the police van doing the "post" run, delivering documents between stations and snapped at 50 in a 30- no prosecution !!
They wrote to every force in the U.K. (under the Freedom of Information Act) asking A) how many vehicles on non-urgent calls were snapped, and B) how many of these went to prosecution.

Half the forces failed to respond within the required 14 days (and still haven't). The rest basically admitted to huge numbers snapped, but little or no prosecutions. The glaring exception was Dorset, who seem to prosecute their own with the same zeal as they go after Joe Public.

Camera Operator:
We all look forward to your next posting telling us in detail how camera operators everywhere were so outraged by this blatant inequality and flagrant flouting of the law, that you have all put your own cushty little numbers on the line by demanding that all such cases in your own area are prosecuted. You will then embark on a nationwide crusade to ensure such discriminatory practices are eradicated. After all, as we keep being told, the law is the law.

its routine now days to have one traffic officer per car, radio talk button is on the gearstick, knowledge of area so instead of 2 officers 1 car covering say 20 square miles you have 2 officers 2 cars covering 40 square miles, which is what you want

beat officers - depends on the circumstances, if it is routine enquirys usually single crewed, double crewed on calls to fights / domestics or anything potentialy violent

_________________
now retired

What we want is more cars with 2 officers, the accountants want cars with 1 officer.

so why do you want cars with 2 officers !!!!!!

ok say plod 1 arrests a drink driver chucks him in the back of the car, take him to the local custody suite to be booked in depends how busy it is could take say another 1 - 2 hours, plod 2 sitting in car doing the crossword

or we could say plod 1 arrests a drink driver, calls for the local beat van to take the drunk to custody, arresting officer still with him but he has notified the control room that he is at the custody suite and plod 2 has said he will take any calls in his area

therefore one officer stuck in custody rather than 2

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now retired