Supplementary memorandum submitted by
RoadPeace
REQUEST FOR WRITTEN SUPPLEMENTARY EVIDENCE
Our responses to your questions are listed below:
1. Do you support the proposal in the Road
Safety Bill for graduated penalties for speeding? What will be
the impact of lowering the minimum penalty from 3 points to 2
points, and in what circumstances would this reduced penalty be
appropriate?
As evident from our response to the relevant
DfT consultation which has already been forwarded to the Transport
Committee, we are not in favour of this proposal with its reduced
minimum penalty, and remain shocked that it was ever proposed,
let alone continues to be discussed. None of the current Safer
Streets Coalition members support reducing the penalty for speeding.
One of RoadPeace's founding aims was to campaign against road
danger reduction and we believe there are strong safety and environmental
arguments for not encouraging drivers to speed.
We are not aware of any evidence that even suggests
reducing the penalties for speeding would lead to safer roads.
As seen in the attached Safety Camera Briefing Pack, we quote
the Committee's "We do not understand how a government which
professes to practice evidence-based policy making could even
contemplate such a change". We regret that some other organisations
have supported this change, particularly when so many claim to
follow an evidence-based approach.
We believe this proposal evolved after the DfT
revised its estimate of pedestrian vulnerability, ie pedestrians
struck at 30 mph had a 20% risk of death, and not 45% as previously
publicised. The Committee should note that we are unaware of any
other country, including the US, Australia, Sweden and the Netherlands,
that believes its pedestrians are so resilient as they all still
use the higher likelihood of death.
At the IAM conference this week, the Road Safety
Minister offered a "deal" to drivers. What he failed
to mention was that this deal would result in deaths and injuries,
especially to vulnerable road users. Nor is any deal needed. Speeding
on 30 mph roads has decreased by 20% in recent years and public
support for safety cameras is still high, despite the imbalance
in resources being invested in negative attacks on cameras. We
worry about other deals that might be offered considering the
persistence of drink driving and feared rise in drug driving.
Or is it only on speeding that the Government is willing to make
a deal?
Instead of reducing the fines to offending drivers,
we urge the Government to share the camera revenue and invest
in support and rehabilitation services for road traffic victims.
As stressed in previous submissions, we believe this would help
remind the public of the human consequences of speeding.
2. Has there been any marked improvement
in collision investigation since the Road Death Investigation
Manual was launched? What further improvements are needed?
We trust there has been some improvement in
fatal collision investigation but we do not think it has been
consistent nor adequate. Please note, as stated in the manual,
the RDIM can also apply to serious injury collisions. We believe,
as noted in our previous submission, that serious injury collision
investigations are not given sufficient priority. This is the
topic of our Annual Lecture "Injured road crash victims—the
widening justice gap", to be held on 27 April, 3-5 pm, at
the Diana, Princes of Wales Memorial Fund in the County Hall.
A fee of £15 is being requested of statutory agencies with
the proceeds going to the RoadPeace helpline.
In addition to our previous request for the
use of GPS in identifying collision locations, our suggestions
for improvement include:
(a) Improved monitoring. At a Metropolitan
Police Authority workshop in 2002, the Metropolitan Police Chief
Superintendent of Traffic promised to establish a working group,
with RoadPeace participation, to supervise and monitor the introduction
of the RDIM. This was never done but we were told last year that
ACPO was trying to monitor the impact of the introduction of the
RDIM. This should include the monitoring of judicial outcomes,
as when the RDIM was launched, the police said it would lead to
better investigations and more convictions. In 2004, there were
only 62 Causing Death by Careless Driving while Under the Influence
convictions nationwide and only one in London. It is still not
possible to know what percent of fatal or injury crashes result
in a careless driving charge or how this varies between service
areas, road user groups or time. The proposed Road Safety Bill
will correct this with regard to fatal crashes but not serious
injury crashes. We understand the conviction rate for Causing
Death by Dangerous Driving is over 95%, much higher than that
for manslaughter (over 80%) or rape (6%), and thus indicates the
CPS is unwilling to proceed with a Section 1 charge unless they
are guaranteed of a conviction.
(b) Post crash reporting. We believe there
should be a follow-up form to Stats 19 that is completed at the
end of the investigation. This would note the contributory factors,
estimated travelling and impact speeds, length (if any) of survival
before death, helmet usage, prosecution decision, etc. If contributory
factors are to be recorded (and we are concerned that in some
areas they are estimated by data operators reading police reports),
then they should be recorded at the end of the investigation and
not at the start.
(c) Speed estimation. The manner and priority
given to estimating speed varies between areas. As this is the
single most important factor, we believe there should be an agreed
national procedure. Families are given one estimate by the police
but are often told another by a surgeon and they should be able
to have more confidence in the police estimate.
(d) Eyesight and mobile phone use. We believe
the police should check or require any driver involved in a fatal
crash to undergo an eye exam given the number of drivers with
poor eyesight. We also believe the police should check mobile
phone records as standard procedure to see if the phone had been
used before the fatal crash.
(e) Information for victims. We believe bereaved
families are failed by the current information given them by the
Home Office. Although it contains separate chapters on prosecution
and compensation, there are no such dedicated chapters on either
inquests or investigation. This is in spite of the fact that all
cases will involve an investigation, almost all will involve an
inquest and only a minority will need information on compensation
and prosecution. The assumption is that the Police Family Liaison
Office will explain the investigation and the inquest to the family
but they deserve to have this in writing. RoadPeace has been campaigning
for over 12 years for bereaved families to be informed that careless
driving charges need to be laid within six months of the crash.
Police tell us they inform families of this deadline on `a need
to know' basis. This is not good enough.
3. Are you satisfied that the Police have
made progress in the use of data recorders in crash investigation?
How could the quality of evidence to coroner's courts be improved?
We are not satisfied of this. In 2005, we contacted
the Metropolitan Police to ask about the extent and the effectiveness
of data recorders in their fleet. They were supposed to find out
and come back to us but never did. We still do not know what percent
of police vehicles have data recorders or if there are any plans
to extend them to other government vehicles. We look forward to
their greater use throughout the motor vehicle fleet as we believe
this would improve driver behaviour, collision investigation,
and lead to early guilty pleas by culpable drivers.
4. Can you give us any examples of where
access to local authority CCTV for investigative purposes was
refused?
This has been mentioned by callers to the RoadPeace
helpline but it is not recorded as a specific field in our helpline
database and so we are not easily able to identify these callers.
We can recall one specific case. In the summer of 2003, we had
a RoadPeace exhibit at the House of Commons. A House of Commons
security guard came and mentioned how he had broken both arms
in a cycling collision and how he could not get the police to
look at CCTV to identify the van involved (it was a hit and run
collision). We wrote to Southwark Police on his behalf.
Colin Ettinger, our lecture Speaker, also raised
this problem in a recent presentation to our Justice for Road
Traffic Victims Parliamentary Group. He spoke of a case that involved
a near fatal injury and problems and the difficulties of accessing
the CCTV footage from the bus. We believe this information should
be readily available for collision investigations. He also spoke
of the reluctance to provide a specialist collision investigator
until/unless the victim had died.
27 March 2006
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