1.  The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) is a registered charity and an associate Parliamentary Group. Its charitable objective is, "To protect human life through the promotion of transport safety for the public benefit". Its aim is to advise and inform members of the Houses of Parliament on air, rail and road safety issues. PACTS brings together safety professionals and legislators to identify research-based solutions to transport safety problems having regard to cost, effectiveness, achievability and acceptability. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to the current inquiry.

  2.  PACTS published a significant research report on the topic of technology and traffic law enforcement in September last year, Policing Road Risk: Enforcement, Technologies and Road Safety. This submission draws from that report and detailed reading of it will provide a more thorough discussion of issues around traffic policing and technology. A copy is enclosed for your information.

  3.  In responding to the Committee's terms of reference, this submission will discuss the effectiveness and efficiency of roads policing in reducing roads casualties, how technological developments affect both the detection and enforcement of impaired drivers, whether police forces have the right balance between technology-led and officer-based enforcement and note how the new road safety funding arrangements will affect road safety partnerships.

  4.  Roads policing is an integral element of efforts to reduce road casualties. The philosophy behind road safety is often characterised as the "three Es": engineering, education and enforcement. Police are charged with the enforcement of traffic law, but in carrying out this duty, they also reinforce education messages and ensure compliance with engineering measures.

  5.  The vast majority of casualties are preventable: research indicates that up to 95% of road collisions are attributable to human error.[8] A considerable element of this human error involves illegal or irresponsible driving behaviour. Road traffic enforcement concentrates on combating and preventing illegal or irresponsible driving behaviour and it therefore has significant potential to reduce these types of casualties. Supporting this view is analysis from the Transport Research Laboratory, which estimated that increased and improved enforcement could deliver casualty reductions:

—  measures for speed reduction would contribute to a 5% reduction in Killed and Seriously Injured (KSI) collisions;

—  measures to control drink driving would contribute a 1.2% reduction in KSIs; and

—  measures for improved driver behaviour would contribute a further 1% reduction in KSIs.[9]

  6.  As well as being an effective means of reducing road casualties, roads policing is also very cost efficient. The Department for Transport (DfT) estimates that the economic value of preventing road casualties in the UK would be £18 billion per year. The European Commission has estimated that the cost-benefit ratio of increased enforcement measures over 15 years in the UK would be:

—  1: 4.1 for speeding;

—  1: 9.4 for drink driving; and

—  1: 10.2 for seat belt wearing.[10]

  7.  Roads policing is a vital aspect of the effort to reduce casualties, primarily by monitoring and enforcing traffic law, but also through playing an educative role to encourage safe driving. However, it must be noted that the effectiveness of the police in reducing casualties is closely related to the priority attached to this work and, consequently, the resources available for it.

  8.  As this inquiry's terms of reference set out, there has been a long-term decline in the number of dedicated traffic police. In addition, the road casualty reduction target is part of the DfT's Public Service Agreement, yet roads police are within the remit of the Home Office. Roads policing has also not been prominent in recent National Policing Plans and was omitted from the Home Office's Policing: building safer communities together green paper. Taken together, these factors work against roads policing receiving the necessary prioritisation and resources and have an impact on the ability of the police to contribute to reductions in road casualties.

  9.  In assessing whether police forces are concentrating traffic enforcement on the right areas and activities to achieve maximum casualty reduction, PACTS would suggest that more could be done to address the two major contributory factors of road casualties: speeding and drink driving.

  10.  Excessive or inappropriate speed is factor in one in three collisions and even more significant in fatal crashes. In the context of declining numbers of dedicated traffic police, the use of safety cameras has been vital to efficiently and remotely monitor and enforce speed laws. As the recently published four year evaluation report showed, safety cameras are very successful in lowering speeds and reducing collisions. However, PACTS is concerned that changes to the operation of safety camera partnerships have the potential to reduce the role of cameras in monitoring and enforcing speed laws and reducing casualties.

  11.  The Secretary of State for Transport announced last December that from 2007-08 the safety camera partnership structure would be disbanded and funding for a range of road safety initiatives would be provided to highways authorities through the Local Transport Plan process. While the new flexibility is to be welcomed, PACTS is concerned that as prime responsibility lies with the highways authorities, without a structure bringing together regional road safety stakeholders, the role of the police in determining local road safety interventions may be diminished. As a key source of intelligence on speed problem areas and as an operator of safety cameras, there is thus potential for the role of safety cameras in casualty reduction to also be diminished.

  12.  There is also scope to improve enforcement of the drink-driving laws to reduce casualties. After more than two decades of significant advances in combating drink driving, casualties have again begun to rise. PACTS is concerned that the number of roadside screening tests for alcohol has been declining, while the percentage of positive tests have been rising:

—  in 1998, there was a peak of 815,000 tests, in which 13% were positive; and

—  in 2001, there were 624,000 tests, of which 16% were positive.

  13.  Although the UK has a strict drink-driving regime—once convicted, a driver loses their licence for a year—and although the UK is a leader in other areas of road safety, the rate of breath-testing is amongst the lowest in Europe. In terms of tests per head of population, only Ireland and Austria have a lower rate of testing than the UK. In 2000, the UK conducted one screening test for every 67 people; in the Netherlands the figure is one in 16, in Spain one in 30 and in Finland, one in four.  The European average probability of being breath tested is one in 16 inhabitants.

  14.  The extent to which approaches to traffic enforcement differ across the country is illustrated most clearly in the breath-testing rates across England. The Home Office Statistical Bulletin of June 2005 provides figures for the number of breath tests per 100,000 head of population by police force boundary. It reveals a marked difference in breath-testing rates between police forces. For example, in Devon and Cornwall and Norfolk, the rate is 380-700 tests per 100,000 people, whereas in North Wales and Hampshire, there is a much higher rate of over 2,000 tests per 100,000 people. This geographical disparity indicates that there is still much work to be done to address drinking and driving and generate a uniformly stringent approach. PACTS would urge that priority be given to increasing the level of testing and, consequently, increasing the public perception of the likelihood of being tested.

  15.  Technological developments underpin these road casualty reduction strategies, in particular for the detection and enforcement of drink-driving. Alcohol impairment technology has been in use for several decades. However, the technology has developed sufficiently to enable mobile use of evidential breath tests, which give a definitive reading of blood alcohol levels and do not require drivers to be taken to a police station for a second test. This has benefits for enforcement as not only are police undertaking enforcement more efficiently, but it confirms impairment at the time of driving; a second evidential test, often hours later at the police station, can provide a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) reading below the legal maximum despite the driver's earlier failed roadside test.

  16.  In the short term, the key legislative change that could assist in increasing the effectiveness of alcohol impairment technologies, is to extend police powers for breath testing to allow roadside screening tests to be administered without the current need for "suspicion" of offending. The requirement for "suspicion" introduces an element of uncertainty about police powers that could act as a disincentive to test a driver. PACTS remains disappointed that the Government chose not to support an amendment to the Road Safety Bill that would have introduced targeted breath testing, where any driver in a defined geographical area and for a defined time period could be tested for blood alcohol content.

  17.  There are also technologies currently in development to detect drug induced impairment. There is a growing level of concern about the effect of driving under the influence of drugs. Assessing impairment from illicit drugs is more complex than alcohol because they may continue to appear in the bloodstream for a considerable period after their impairment effect has worn off and there is considerable variability between levels of dosage and levels of impairment. This prevents drug levels detected in blood, saliva or sweat from being used as an indicator of impairment level in the same way that BAC is used. Although new technologies allow swift and simple drugs tests to be conducted, their usefulness can be limited by the lack of direct links to impairment, which is the crucial question for road safety.

  18.  New technologies aimed at detecting and assessing driver impairment are currently under development. One example measures impairment on reaction times and hand-eye co-ordination, rather than substances in blood or breath. The most significant advantage would be to measure impairment that may currently cause driving problems but is difficult to assess, including impairment resulting from fatigue, legal and medicinal drugs and the interaction between alcohol and illicit drugs. A more generalised impairment detection technology could shift the focus of testing towards an aptitude to drive at a particular point in time and away from a preoccupation with the cause of the impairment. This may contribute towards a greater awareness among drivers about the dangers of driving while fatigued or impaired through the use of medicinal drugs, as well as generating greater awareness of the interaction between alcohol and both prescription and illicit drugs.

  19.  On the question of facilitating greater testing for non-alcohol related impairment, the first step in any enforcement strategy would be for the Home Office to provide separate data on drink and drug driving offences, to give an accurate statistic on the prevalence of drug driving. Secondly, there is great scope for a reaction time and hand-eye co-ordination based impairment device to measure fitness to drive. PACTS would suggest further research and debate to develop a generalised impairment technology able to measure fitness to drive.

  20.  Technology has made enforcement of traffic violations that are key contributors to road casualties—speeding and drink driving—efficient and effective. It also underpins the entitlement to drive regime through databases providing information on drivers, such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR). Nonetheless, the skills of roads police—including discretion, their educative role and ability to respond to bad driving offences not detectable through automated enforcement—cannot be replicated by technology. The ACPO/DfT/Home Office Roads Policing Strategy recognised the important role technologies play in strengthening, not replacing, enforcement duties:

Technology cannot wholly replace the police: an adequate police presence on the road is also vital. For example, safety camera technology is successfully reducing speeding, collisions, deaths and casualties at the 5,000 or so fixed and mobile camera sites in Great Britain…But physical police presence is needed to deal with speeding elsewhere on the road network, including the motorways,—and there are other significant problems which camera and other technology cannot yet detect, including drink and drug driving, careless and dangerous driving, and failure to use safety belts.[11]

  21.  In broad terms, PACTS would suggest that there is a reasonable balance between technology-led enforcement and officers carrying out roads policing. Indeed, further use of technologies like ANPR to detect vehicle administration offences and developments in impairment devices could greatly assist traffic police without replacing their role. However, the general decline in prominence of roads policing and numbers of dedicated traffic officers would indicate that there is scope for further action to ensure there is an appropriate balance. PACTS is keen to ensure that the recent slight rise in traffic police numbers does not slip and the impetus generated by the Roads Policing Strategy is maintained.

  22.  The evidence of how the changing balance between traffic officers and technology has contributed to road casualty reductions is most clearly seen in the lower current levels of KSIs than in previous decades. In 1966 designated traffic officers made up 15-20% of force strength, compared to 7% in 1998. In that time, breathalysers have been introduced and refined, safety cameras have been introduced and more efficient data management has evolved to support the driver entitlement regime. During that time the number of people killed on the roads has declined from 8,000 in 1967 to 3,500 in 2004 and the number of seriously injured has fallen from 100,000 and 30,000 for the same years. Consistent enforcement by traffic police, in particular, as well as road and vehicle design has contributed to this reduction. However, accurate and efficient technology underpins these reductions.

  23.  The most recent evidence that technology contributes to casualty reduction in a way that solely relying on policing cannot, is The national safety camera programme: four year evaluation report, published by DfT in December 2005.  Allowing for the "natural" fall in the number of collisions which can occur over time, the evaluation found that there was a reduction of 20% across slight, serious and fatal collisions compared to the likely number had the camera not been installed at those sites where it was possible to undertake a reliable analysis of the "regression to the mean" effect.

  24.  It is clear that technology has played a central role in assisting the police in their efforts to reduce road casualties. PACTS would recommend:

—  legislative change to allow more effective use of alcohol impairment technology through targeted breath testing;

—  prioritisation of technological developments to allow accurate impairment measurements across the range of fatigue and substance-induced impairments;

—  the acknowledgement of the key role played by roads policing in reducing casualties in strategic and operational documents and resource allocation; and

—  further research into the effectiveness of roads policing to establish the kind of roads policing that would contribute most to casualty reduction.

15 February 2006

9   Transport Research Laboratory, in PACTS, Policing Road Risk: enforcement, technologies and road safety, p6. Back

10   PACTS, Policing Road Risk: enforcement, technologies and road safety, p 6. Back

11   ACPO/DfT/Home Office, in PACTS, Policing Road Risk: enforcement, technologies and road safety, p 21. Back