MS LORNA PEARCE, DR JEREMY BROUGHTON, MR NEAL SKELTON AND DR CLAIRE CORBETT

15 MARCH 2006

  Q220  Mr Martlew: I think you have touched on the issue of lowering the level at which driving becomes illegal. Do you actually support that proposal?

  Mr Skelton: Yes I do because the current level is open to interpretation by the driver. If you reduce the level it is still open to interpretation by the driver but it gets less and less. Ultimately you just have a zero tolerance; you have a nil limit.

  Q221  Mr Martlew: That is fine but when do people know there is no alcohol in the blood? You go out, have a few drinks, and get up the next morning, and that is the fear of many people.

  Mr Skelton: I know there is a discussion about putting "alcolocks" on to ignitions which would prevent the vehicle being driven. I fully support that as a way forward but you have always got to anticipate that a devious driver will find somebody who is sober to circumvent that system, but the technology being in place will achieve the desired effect in many respects.

  Q222  Mr Martlew: Just quickly on the alcolocks, would you suggest that, say, all new vehicles be fitted with this or just for drivers who have a past record?

  Mr Skelton: I think you could have a staged implementation. You could go for drivers with a past record but ultimately the benefits would translate across to the whole vehicle fleet.

  Q223  Chairman: Can I ask you Dr Corbett, do you think enough is being done to win public support and understanding for the need for camera reinforcement?

  Dr Corbett: No, I do not. In research we have done in late 2003 it seemed that drivers did not fully appreciate how the camera system operated, how sites were chosen, and what happens to fine monies, and we know that from a series of national surveys every year that in 2004, 55% of people asked, on average, throughout the country thought that cameras represented easy money for government, and I think this is a perception that really needs to be tackled because we do need to keep majority public support for cameras because they are effective.

  Q224  Chairman: The trouble was the ones who drove the most, who were men between 25 and 44 and who drove more than 20,000 miles per annum, seemed to be the most negative about cameras.

  Dr Corbett: Yes.

  Q225  Chairman: Well, in that case, how do you really convince them that they have got to comply with speed limits?

  Dr Corbett: That is the difficult problem, is it not? It is like the search for the Holy Grail. We somehow have to get it through to drivers that inappropriate and excess speed is dangerous and does lead to accidents.

  Q226  Chairman: Do you think publicity campaigns work?

  Dr Corbett: I think the hard-hitting ones do and I think there is some evidence for that.

  Q227  Chairman: Have the Home Office and the Department for Transport been active enough and effective enough in leading these campaigns?

  Dr Corbett: I think they put a lot of money into these campaigns but I am not quite sure what research goes into evaluating them. I am talking more at the anecdotal level, in research I have done, certainly among drivers that I have spoken to they do seem to be affected by these hard-hitting TV adverts and it does get women in particular to slow down.

  Q228  Chairman: Mr Skelton, do you want to have a guess at why the Chief Constable who gave us evidence last week said that he did not want any more cameras?

  Mr Skelton: I think again it is a distribution of the resources that are applicable to road safety requirements and probably, stabbing a guess at what he is saying, he is saying the use of the National Intelligence Model and the diversion of human resources, assuming that he has got the right number, will achieve that effect. I think, again, it will probably be the balance of technology plus the human-led policing enforcement.

  Q229  Chairman: So is it more cost-effective to have traffic police checks at random times?

  Mr Skelton: Again, when you say random, I think the random nature has got to be led by specific intelligence. If you just allow it to be purely random then your effectiveness will deteriorate. If, on the other hand, it is intelligence-led but appears random then it will have the desired effect.

  Q230  Chairman: So long as they do not know you are there and you know why you are there, it works?

  Mr Skelton: Yes.

  Q231  Mr Clelland: Mr Skelton, you say in your memorandum that automatic number plate recognition equipment has provided `varying results'. Could you just tell us what the results were?

  Mr Skelton: I do not have the specific results with me but I am aware obviously that throughout the 43 police forces in England and Wales there is a different level of adoption by ANPR technology. Whilst there is a national statutory requirement to draw this in line, this is some distance ahead, so, accordingly, the investment has been placed differently in different forces. Certainly there has been a recognition that it is like a domino effect in many respects, that once ANPR is seen to be the effective crime-fighting tool that it is when the adjacent force or adjacent forces adopt that technology quite rapidly but at the present time there is variable uptake.

  Q232  Mr Clelland: You also say that "other than ANPR there have been no major technological developments to revolutionise roads policing". Does that mean you think there are opportunities which have been missed or wasted?

  Mr Skelton: I think that ANPR is the current silver bullet. That is the technology that has been fully recognised at the present stage and future technology, for example electronic vehicle identification which is going through very preliminary investigation at the moment, will have a significant impact in the future, but that is a number of years ahead before that is effective.

  Q233  Mr Martlew: What will it do?

  Mr Skelton: In many respects it is like an ANPR plus. What it will do is it will signify and electronically identify individual vehicles rather than going for the individual vehicle registration mark, which if it is broken, missing or has been corrupted in some form or other, is readily overlooked by the camera system. This sophisticated, internal, electronic vehicle identification linked to the ANPR system giving the visual recognition will give those levels of identification. Tied into the various databases of DVLA, insurance and MOT, it provides a significant tool across the range of criminality, including all the relevant motoring offences.

  Q234  Mr Clelland: Are there administrative and bureaucratic obstacles to the introduction of new technology, type approval for instance? Do these cause delays? Can anything be done about speeding up the process?

  Mr Skelton: There are inherent delays in the type approval process, but I am aware that they are really going as fast as they can go because the type approval process seeks to eradicate subsequent challenges and costly court implications. So if you tried to speed it up you probably could but there will be retrospective effects, I would be sure.

  Q235  Mr Clelland: What about red light running cameras at traffic light junctions; should all junctions be equipped with that sort of equipment?

  Mr Skelton: I think again it is relevant to the circumstances in the location. I think if you just have it as a de facto establishment, you end up with a risk of complacency potentially. By having the cameras at specified locations, even if the camera does not identify the driver, the identification of the camera at that site should give the driver a recognition that that is a dangerous junction rather than just a blanket coverage.

  Q236  Mr Goodwill: I was recently in Bangkok (which is famous for its red lights I suppose) and they have got some fairly simple technology on some of their traffic junctions where the red light is accompanied by a red countdown so you can see exactly how many seconds before it changes to green. Similarly, the green light has a countdown in green. So if you see it at 20 seconds you know that you can get by, if it is five seconds then you probably have to think about stopping. Have you seen that in action because it seemed to work very well indeed at very busy junctions?

  Ms Pearce: The only thing I am aware of is a countdown on pedestrian crossings, which I think some of my colleagues looked into in more detail in another piece of research. I do know there were pros and cons with that because if somebody comes to a pedestrian crossing and they realise they have got a minute to go or 30 seconds to go, they may think, "I am not going to wait that long," and rush across. So you have to balance that with the effect if they realise they have only got three seconds to wait and they might well wait. Whether the same argument might apply to—

  Q237  Mr Goodwill: Cars do not tend to go across a junction on red even if there is nothing coming, in my experience, but they do tend to rush up because they think it may change and then basically slam all the brakes on or be an "amber gambler", as I think we used advertise, and they just go for it?

  Ms Pearce: Again you would need to look at what the different effects were.

  Q238  Mr Goodwill: Do you look at technologies in use around the world to see how effective that is or do we tend to be blinkered in the UK?

  Ms Pearce: Quite a few of the studies we have we done do look at research in other countries, particularly other countries with similar types of traffic situation.

  Mr Skelton: Certainly in the area in which I work there are international bodies throughout the globe where you try and pick best practice.

  Q239  Chairman: Mr Skelton, you are telling us about all your new toys which do everything except physically get out and arrest the driver. How many of those are dependent upon type approval?

  Mr Skelton: Certainly the drink-drive and the drugs analysers will be the subject of type approval. The intelligence speed adaptation probably would require some type approval process, so I think it is fairly dependent because obviously I would be conscious of subsequent court case challenges against the introduction of new technologies.