House of Commons Transport Committee Roads Policing and Technology: Getting the right balance Tenth Report of Session 2005–06 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 18 October 2006 HC 975 Published on 31 October 2006 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £23.00 The Transport Committee The Transport Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Department for Transport and its associated public bodies. Current membership Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody MP (Labour, Crewe) (Chairman) Mr David Clelland MP (Labour, Tyne Bridge) Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson MP (Democratic Unionist, Lagan Valley) Clive Efford MP (Labour, Eltham) Mrs Louise Ellman MP (Labour/Co-operative, Liverpool Riverside) Mr Robert Goodwill MP (Conservative, Scarborough & Whitby) Mr John Leech MP (Liberal Democrat, Manchester, Withington) Mr Eric Martlew MP (Labour, Carlisle) Mr Lee Scott MP (Conservative, Ilford North) Mr Graham Stringer MP (Labour, Manchester Blackley) Mr David Wilshire MP (Conservative, Spelthorne) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at www.parliament.uk/transcom. A list of Reports of the Committee in the present Parliament is at the back of this volume. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Tom Healey (Clerk), Annette Toft (Second Clerk), Clare Maltby (Committee Specialist), Louise Butcher (Inquiry Manager), Tony Catinella (Committee Assistant), Ronnie Jefferson (Secretary), Henry Ayi- Hyde (Senior Office Clerk) and Laura Kibby (Media Officer). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Transport Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 6263; the Committee’s email address is [email protected] 1 Contents Report Page 1 Introduction 3 2 Setting the context: the road casualty problem 5 3 The decline of roads policing: under-prioritised and under-resourced 8 Definition of a Roads Police Officer 9 Multi-tasking 9 Number of roads police officers 11 Use of ‘non-sworn’ staff 12 National policing plans 13 Evidence-based policing priorities 16 4 The potential of roads policing 18 HM Inspectorate of Constabulary assessment 20 Promotional campaigns 21 Roads policing strategy 23 5 Relationship between officers and technology 26 Investment in staff 26 Technology cannot replace police officers 26 Technology increases efficiency 27 Applying the National Intelligence Model to roads policing 29 Training 30 Investment in technology 31 The influence of new technologies on deployment decisions 33 Introducing new technologies into enforcement 34 Type approval 35 6 Speed enforcement 37 Safety Camera Partnerships 37 Safety camera guidelines 38 The future of the National Safety Camera Partnerships 41 Future technologies for speed limit enforcement 44 Time-distance cameras 44 Intelligent Road Studs 44 Intelligent Speed Adaptation 45 7 Drink and drug driving 47 Increasing prevalence of drink-driving and drug-driving 47 Prevalence increases as enforcement decreases 48 Use of technology in tackling drink-driving and drug-driving 50 Roadside evidential alcohol breath testing equipment 50 Drug screening equipment 52 Field Impairment Test 54 2 Legislation and enforcement of drink-driving and drug-driving 55 The permitted blood alcohol content 55 Proving ‘impairment’ through the use of drugs 56 8 Other impairment 58 Mobile telephone use 58 Fatigue 59 Haulage vehicles 60 9 Conclusions 62 Conclusions and recommendations 64 Formal minutes 74 Witnesses 75 List of written evidence 76 Reports from the Transport Committee since 2005 78 3 1 Introduction 1. Road crash fatalities and injuries have decreased over successive decades but the death toll remains far too high. In 2005, traffic collisions killed 3,201 people, seriously injured 28,954 and slightly injured a further 238,862.1 Many of these casualties might have been avoided if there were a higher level of compliance with traffic law.2 The Committee decided to investigate what role roads policing plays in casualty reduction and how performance could be improved. 2. Witnesses were invited to submit evidence on the following points: x Are traffic officers adequately resourced, trained and supported? x What impact has the joint Roads Policing Strategy had on the work of traffic officers? How has it influenced the priority given to roads policing, and the resources invested? x Have police forces across the UK got the balance right between technology-led enforcement and officers carrying out road policing duties? What evidence is there that the changing balance between traffic officers and technology has influenced casualty reduction rates? x How effective and how efficient is roads policing in reducing the number of road casualties? Are police forces concentrating traffic enforcement on the right areas and activities to achieve maximum casualty reduction? To what extent do approaches to traffic enforcement and casualty reduction differ between forces across the country? x How have technological developments affected both the detection and enforcement of drivers impaired through alcohol, drugs and fatigue? Is the best use being made of these technologies? What legislative, strategic and operational changes would improve the effectiveness of these technologies? x How will the new funding arrangement announced by the Secretary of State affect the work of the road safety camera partnerships? What lessons can be learned from the experience of speed limit enforcement using camera technology? x How effective are multi-agency approaches to safety issues? What steps are required to improve partnership work between the police, Department for Transport, local authorities and other agencies? 3. We are grateful to all those who submitted evidence to this inquiry (listed at the end of this report) and to the Ministers of the Department for Transport and Home Office for appearing jointly to give evidence. We are also grateful for the assistance of our Specialist Adviser, Robert Gifford, of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety. 1 Department for Transport & National Statistics (2006) Road Casualties Great Britain: 2005 Annual Report 2 The Government collects data on the number of collisions and the number of road traffic offences, but it does not routinely match the two. 4 4. This Report sets out the context of the casualty problem, the role of roads policing, and the relationship between police officers and technology. It then takes examples of particular offences and high risk driving behaviours and examines how technology has influenced their enforcement: speeding; drink-driving; drug-driving; driving while using a mobile telephone; and driving while impaired by fatigue. Road casualty reduction is achieved through a combination of road user education, improvements to vehicle design and the road environment, and enforcement of road traffic laws. While all these elements are vital, this report focuses exclusively on the role of roads policing and the contribution which enforcement can make to casualty reduction. 5 2 Setting the context: the road casualty problem 5. The Department for Transport is currently on track to meet its Public Service Agreement target to reduce road casualties. By 2010, the target is to achieve, compared with the average for 1994–98: x a 40% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) in road collisions; x a 50% reduction in the number of children under 16 killed or seriously injured; and x a 10% reduction in the slight casualty rate, expressed as the number of people slightly injured per 100 million vehicle kilometres.3 6. The target also commits the Department to tackling the significantly higher incidence of road traffic injuries in disadvantaged communities. The Department for Transport now has underway the second three-yearly review of progress in implementation of the Road Safety Strategy and expects subsequently to review its casualty reduction policy for the period beyond 2010.4 Despite having one of the safest road environments in the world,5 road travel is still far more dangerous than other modes of transport, as demonstrated by the table below. 3 Scottish Ministers and the National Assembly for Wales have concurrent responsibility with the UK Government for the promotion of road safety in Scotland and Wales respectively. Northern Ireland has its own road safety strategy for 2002–2012, which seeks a one third reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured each year on Northern Ireland roads by 2012. http://www.roadsafetyni.org/roadsafetystrategy_051102.pdf 4 Ev 150 5 Transport Statistics Great Britain: 2005 Edition shows in Table 10.7 that only Sweden had a lower rate of road deaths per head of population than Great Britain in 2003. 6 Table 1: Passenger casualty rates by mode in 2004 Killed (per billion passenger Killed or seriously injured (per kilometres) billion passenger kilometres) Air 0.0 0.0 Rail 0.2 N/A6 Water 0.0 47 Bus and coach 0.4 9 Car 2.5 25 Van 0.8 8 Two-wheeled motor vehicle 105 1,194 Pedal cycle 35 597 Pedestrian 37 409 Source: DfT Road Casualties Great Britain 2006 Edition, Table 52, page 130 7. We congratulate the Department for Transport, the police, local authorities and road safety professionals for the good progress that has been made toward the casualty reduction targets. This is a considerable achievement. There should be no complacency however, when over 3,000 people continue to be killed each year, and almost 30,000 are seriously injured. The number of deaths and injuries remains far too high. People accept a level of risk on the road which far surpasses anything they would consent to in other aspects of daily life, including other modes of transport.