Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
180-196)
MR KEVIN
CLINTON, MR
STEVE THORNTON,
MR STEVE
GREEN, MR
STUART SMITH
AND MS
JAN BERRY
30 APRIL 2008
Q180 Graham Stringer: Of the victims?
Ms Berry: For the victims, yes.
But for other people, the technology that is available at the
moment to detect drugs is just not there. What we would like to
see is some real investment going into getting that technology.
From a police officer's point of view they are pretty simple tests
that you undertake on the roadside if a person was behaving in
a strange way to check whether they are impaired to drive. They
are not foolproof in any way. Then you take them back to the police
station if you are still not satisfied and you have got reason
to believe they are under the influence of drugs and then you
go through the system of taking blood checks and urine samples
and waiting for some time for the results on those. The technology
for drugs is nowhere near as advanced as it is for alcohol and
the quicker we can get a roadside test for drugs, then I suppose
in answer to the original question you asked that would be a far
better way to tell that. Of course, having the technology is one
thing, but having the people in a position to check for it is
another and that would be another problem for us at the moment.
Q181 Graham Stringer: Do you have
a subjective assessment of how big a problem it is?
Ms Berry: I do not think it matters
whether it is lawful or unlawful. For lawful drugs it is a problem,
I do not believe people are given sufficient advice as to whether
they should be driving when they are on prescribed drugs and sometimes
if you read the very fine print on medications you can see some
advice on that, but how many people are actually directed to that
and do read that. As far as unlawful drugs are concerned, the
perception of police officers is that it is a considerable problem.
Mr Green: Forgive me, because
I cannot tell you the figures, but I think there is research which
gives an indication of the size of illegal drug abuse in the population.
I do not know what those figures are but they are not particularly
encouraging. It is reasonable to extrapolate those figures into
the driving population. It is possible to put some rough quantification
to it. I just wanted to make the point that I agree with everything
Jan has said, particularly around the difficulty of actually detecting
the presence of drugs in people's bodies, but there are unnecessary
complications in the law as it currently stands. With alcohol
there is an objective measure and if you have a level of so much
alcohol in your body then you are guilty of a criminal offence;
with drugs the starting point is an impairment, you have to prove
that someone's ability to drive has been impaired before you get
into a criminal offence. Whilst I can see that as a defendable
position for legal drugs, because clearly not all prescription
drugs have an impact on someone's ability to drive, where illegal
drugs are concerned I cannot see what the justification is for
maintaining that requirement for impairment. Certainly ACPO's
position is that the law should be changed so that if anyone is
found to be driving a motor vehicle with an illegal drug in their
body, that should be an absolute offence regardless of impairment.
We have debated the reason why those drugs are illegal, therefore
the fact that it is in someone's body should be sufficient to
convict them of a criminal offence and that certainly simplifies
the position considerably.
Mr Thornton: We are told by the
youth offending teams in West Yorkshire that there is chronic
use of cannabis amongst young people and these people are driving,
but we do not know the extent of that.
Mr Smith: Just to give you an
estimate, when we are delivering our road safety talks we ask
the young people whether they have ever driven with anybody who
is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. In Staffordshire we
deliver that road safety talk to around 12,000 young people every
year and when we ask the question we get a figure of around 20%
who admit to having been in a car with somebody who is under the
influence of alcohol or drugs. That gives you an idea that this
is a sizeable problem, around 2,500 who are admitting to that.
I would say that is the lower end of the estimate.
Q182 Graham Stringer: Mr Green, are
the penalties right for drink-driving? Is the alcohol level of
80mg the right level?
Mr Green: I think that the penalties
available are right where drink-driving is concerned. You have
probably yet to meet a police officer who says the court makes
the fullest use of the penalties they possibly could, because
at the end of the spectrum is imprisonment, and I think that is
right. Certainly the position of ACPO and my personal view is
that we should make two changes where alcohol is concerned. One
is to lower the level of the permitted limit to 50mg rather than
80 as it currently is, and the other is to change the law on breath
testing so we can have random breath testing. I accept there are
differing opinions about the underpinning science certainly behind
lowering the level of the permitted limit, but my view is this:
we need to give the public simple messages and I think the message
at the moment is too complicated. I have launched the last couple
of drink-driving campaigns and said, "If you drive then you
must not drink and if you drink then you must not drive",
but everyone knows when the limit is at 80 they can drink and
still be legal. Where random breath testing is concerned, Jan
and I are 1970s police officers at heart and we know that with
the law as it currently is, without breaking the law or doing
anything improper, we can breath test anybody we want who is drinking
and driving, but to make it simple for people so they understand
the risks they are taking the law should be really clear and simple
to say a police office can stop someone and breath test them and
if you have a drink then you run the risk of being over the limit,
therefore do not have one. I do not think that law is clear enough
or simple enough in people's minds at the moment.
Q183 Graham Stringer: Is not the
real problem with drinking and driving at the other end, that
most people are safe and do not drink and drive but there is a
small rump of people who drink a lot and might drink the equivalent
of seven, eight or nine pints and go out and drive and we are
not dealing with that group of people rather than those people
who might be at 60mg or 70mg? Is that not the real problem?
Mr Green: Forgive me because I
am not au fait with the most up-to-date research. That is not
my perception. If you look at society and the way in which alcohol
is marketed to the population, the way in which you can buy it
cheaper than water in supermarkets, the creation of garishly coloured
sweet, sickly drinks aimed to get young people involved in drinking,
the threat of alcohol to people driving is bigger now than it
has ever been. We should intrude on the risk judgments that people
make about whether to drink and drive at every stage in their
thinking. I am not saying you are wrong, but because of the way
that alcohol is marketed to people by the industry today then
I think it is necessary to have very clear, understandable risk
judgments that people make based on very clear laws and legal
powers.
Ms Berry: I agree with most of
what Mr Green has just said. It is indefensible for our drink-drive
levels to be as they are today, and I say that for a number of
different reasons. There is clear evidence from across Europe
that you save lives by reducing it, but the way in which you do
that has to be explained, it has to be trained and marketed in
a very sensitive way. There may well be a rump of people who are
going to flout the law irrespective of any changes you make, but
I also think in the 1970s when I started policing, swinging the
lamp, that it was socially acceptable to drink and drive and there
has been a huge culture change in that where it is now socially
unacceptable to drink and drive. However, I do believe that there
is a slight move back in that direction where maybe because of
the lack of fear and enforcement people are starting to take risks
that maybe they would not have done a little while ago, so there
is an area around the likelihood of being caught and enforcement
that should be of concern to us. On top of that, Mr Green is absolutely
right, I do not think you need to change the law in order to make
a statement, I think that police officers probably have sufficient
laws now to randomly check people provided they can justify the
course of action they are taking, and the important aspect there
is about justification.
Mr Clinton: Can I just say that
RoSPA strongly favours giving the police more powers to do random
breath testing or targeted breath testing along with a lower limit
drink-drive limit. There is research which shows that lowering
the limit to 50 would save around 65 lives a year. Some of the
research in Europe about lowering the limits indicates that some
of these higher drink-drivers would also be affected, although
I am not quite sure how that works. In terms of random breath
testing, what I think is crucial is the visibility of it. It is
not just about catching drink-drivers, it is about sending a deterrent
and an education message to every other driver who sees this happening.
There was a Home Office survey a few years ago which suggested
that around half of drivers felt that they could drink and drive
once a year without being stopped and breath tested. There is
a sense here that there is not a deterrent to drink-drive and
the chances of them getting caught are so low that they need not
particularly worry about it. Increasing this deterrent is very
important and the profile of the drink-drive campaign.
Mr Smith: Just a point on education.
We discuss with the people that we are involved with as far as
education about units and people have no idea what a unit is.
Q184 Graham Stringer: Do you really
think that? Do you not think that most people in a pub think they
are alright on a couple of small glasses of wine or two pints
of bitter?
Mr Smith: I am just saying that
maybe in terms of education and setting the limit there should
be some messages there so that people understand what is acceptable
and if it is target zero it is about zero alcohol in that respect.
Ms Berry: There is a huge difference
in the strength of alcohol, half a pint of one compared to another,
and also in a glass of wine. A glass of wine a little while ago
and today is considerably different, so you can have a large glass
or a small glass. There are mixed messages around that. The other
thing my colleagues have suggested is at the moment we give people
second chances, so if they have got a level of alcohol between
35 and 45 or something they are given another chance to blow a
negative breath test. We feel that is too high anyhow and it sends
a very strong message that if you blow a positive breath test
then that is the evidence. Our suggestion would be that we remove
the opportunity for people to have second breath tests in order
to blow a negative.[1]
Mr Green: I just wanted to make
a point prompted by my colleague, just going back to your point
about is there a rump of people. When that theory was dominant
the view was that the rump of people were approaching middle-age
and had not been touched by the more recent education campaigns.
In the Christmas drink-drive campaign that was conducted a few
months ago, there was no difference between under-25s and over-25s
in the level of positive breath tests, so the indication from
that campaign, which I accept was only a couple of weeks but very
intensive drink-drive testing, was that both those sections of
the population were equally likely to be drinking and driving.
That tends to point towards a more general problem than perhaps
has been perceived. Just picking up on the visibility of enforcement,
figures out today for 2006 show quite clearly since the early
2000s, having seen a progressive fall-off of breath testing in
the country, breath testing has been picking up year-on-year.
It fell back slightly in 2006 but the level of positive tests
increased again. The trend of breath tests is that it is back
on the increase and police officers are understanding again that
this problem is coming back on to the radar screen. I just wonder
if all this is telling us that maybe that level of social unacceptability
that we achieved for drink-driving 10 years ago has worn off and
needs to be re-established in education and campaigning.
Mr Thornton: Some statistics we
have been looking at recently might suggest that we are developing
a morning after problem with alcohol. The biggest problem for
us over the last couple of years in the morning peak period has
been drivers not seeing motorcyclists and we are looking to do
more research on what the causes of that are, but it may be it
is a morning after problem.
Q185 Graham Stringer: Can I ask one
last question which I think is related to the previous question.
A number of answers have referred to the lack of resources really
for enforcing the law on the roads. Does that mean that the enforcement
agencies, primarily the police, are missing a trick? Is there
not a pretty strong link between criminality and those people
who cause accidents on the road? Would there not be a double benefit
if there was more enforcement by the police on the roads?
Mr Clinton: Certainly there is
strong research that roads policing is very good at catching people
involved in other types of criminal activities so you do get that
double benefit, and that is a very strong argument for more roads
policing and visible roads policing.
Mr Thornton: We are funding roads
policing, buying ANPR equipment, laser speed measurement. We are
supporting the police but we have to get roads policemen out on
overtime. The targets in the Police Performance Appraisal Framework
does not allow them in West Yorkshire to go out and do that in
normal policing time.
Q186 Mr Clelland: Has there been
a reduction in roads policing?
Ms Berry: There has certainly
been a reduction in officers who are specialist road policing
officers and we would not support that in any way. The link that
you make between general patrol, road traffic law and criminality
is absolutely right. None of these people operate in a vacuum
away from everything else and if you look at a really significant
arrest for major crime in years gone by, inevitably it is a road
traffic officer who has actually undertaken that because there
is no beginning and no end to that particular function, and you
covered that very well. It is false. In the prioritisation of
policing now, unless there is a target, unless it is part of the
Performance Framework, then, sadly, it is not done as effectively
and with as many numbers.
Mr Green: The simple answer to
the question is yes. Having said that, I want to give some context
to that. Whilst I would not sit here and argue against the fact
that the Police Service has had more resources in the last few
years, what I would say is what you have also seen is the mission
of the Police Service has crept wider and wider and the Service
is being stretched thinner and thinner across that mission. We
did not have the resources committed to counter-terrorism a few
years ago that we have now. We did not have the resources committed
to organised crime that we have now. We did not have people whose
sole task is managing high risk offenders, as we have now. The
list could go on. If you like, whilst the point that is being
made is a correct one, and I do not think Jan and I are at any
variance about it, you cannot just look at roads policing and
say, "Chief Constables should put more resources into roads
policing and less into something else", because what is that
something else that they should put less into. This is symptomatic
of that bigger issue about the widening mission of the Police
Service and getting clarity about what does Government, Parliament,
people, want out of the Police Service and let us try and do those
things and have the resources to do them.
Ms Berry: I agree with that, but
we need to go back in time a little bit. About 10 or 15 years
ago, police officers started to be removed from the street because
some chief officers indicated that you could patrol a paving slab
for seven years and never prevent or detect a crime. I think we
now have had to reintroduce neighbourhood and community policing
in order to recover the damage that has been caused in that time.
We run the risk of doing exactly the same with roads policing
if we remove police officers from the roads. You cannot compartmentalise
policing by dealing with counter-terrorism, fraud, policing is
about an overall function and having a very visible deterrent
and enforcer on the streets and on the roads. If we try and compartmentalise
it or put it into silos then the integration we complained of
right at the beginning of this session where maybe governments
do not talk to each other, different parts of the Police Service
or different agencies will not talk to each other either and safety
on the roads and in our communities will suffer as a result.
Q187 Mr Clelland: Are the Emergency
Services now dealing with more road traffic accidents or less
since 2000?
Mr Smith: I can give you some
figures for my local area. For the past five years the number
of incidents we have attended are 945, 960, 976, 969 and 977.
They are hovering just under the 1,000 mark. We have seen no decrease
in the number of incidents that we attend.
Ms Berry: I think casualties are
reducing, but I do not think we are able to give a true statistic
on whether the numbers of accidents are going up or down because
we are not attending as many incidents as we would have done previously.
Mr Thornton: Crashes have come
down considerably in West Yorkshire over the last two years, but
we are seeing an increase in extreme behaviour and we are seeing
a levelling off in deaths and serious injuries. The total number
of crashes has come down quite dramatically.
Q188 Mr Clelland: Would a stronger
emphasis on tackling uninsured or untaxed drivers lead to fewer
road casualties?
Mr Clinton: Yes, it certainly
would. The research is fairly clear that drivers who are illegal
drivers because they are not licensed, insured or taxed are more
likely to be involved in road crashes and more likely to be involved
in serious road crashes. We were talking earlier about which are
the high risk groups and certainly illegal drivers are one of
the key groups. Things like ANPR, automatic number plate recognition,
that sort of technology, is a very important tool for dealing
with those drivers.
Mr Thornton: This goes back to
what I was saying about local conditions. In some areas of West
Yorkshire the Motor Insurers' Bureau estimates 60% of the resident
vehicles are being driven uninsured and these are huge social
problems for us and do lead to dangers on the streets.
Q189 Graham Stringer: I am sorry,
I misheard that. Could you repeat that percentage?
Mr Thornton: 60% of resident vehicles
are being driven uninsured. That is from the Motor Insurers' Bureau
and that is in areas of Bradford.
Q190 Graham Stringer: That is an
extraordinary figure. When we have had the AA here in the past
they have given us what I thought were very high figures which
in percentages would be about 6 or 7%, but you are saying in parts
it is more than half?
Mr Thornton: 57% is the actual
figure, but there are other places in West Yorkshire where they
are much higher than I would have imagined.
Q191 Graham Stringer: Have you bothered
telling the local police?
Mr Thornton: We have spoken with
Sir Norman Bettison, the Chief Constable.
Q192 Graham Stringer: And the response?
Mr Thornton: He will give the
attention to it that he can within his resources. Sir Norman has
been very good, he has made road safety a responsibility of the
neighbourhood policing teams and we are hoping we can progress
road safety in that way.
Q193 Mr Clelland: The question is
do people who are uninsured or untaxed tend to have more accidents
than others?
Mr Thornton: Yes. PACTS have proved
that in the past. That is the information that we use.
Q194 Mr Clelland: What percentage
of children currently get formal pedestrian and/or cycle training?
Mr Clinton: I cannot give you
a figure. It is certainly true that pedestrian training has grown
very significantly over recent years and the Department has very
recently published research which shows that it is effective in
improving children's skills as pedestrians. In terms of cycle
training, traditionally we would say that around 200,000 to 250,000
children in the capital in the nine to ten year age group would
get some form of cycle training. Cycle training is going through
a revolution now, there have been new national standards developed
and the Government has earmarked a tremendous amount of money
and set itself targets for basically trying to make practical
cycle training available to virtually every child in that age
range. We are seeing a massive increase in both pedestrian and
cyclist training.
Q195 Mr Clelland: The Government's
money which has been provided for bikeability training, that will
improve the situation, will it?
Mr Clinton: Yes. What has been
very important about that is there is a new form of cycle training
that has been developed very much involving going out on the road,
which research shows is where you need to do the training both
in pedestrian terms and cyclist training because it is of limited
use to do it in the playground. There has been a lot of progress
in that area and it is certainly very welcome.
Q196 Mr Clelland: On a similar vein,
on the Tyne & Wear Metro recently we had two accidents with
people on motability scooters mounting the Metro and because they
have got to speed up to get over the gap, they went straight across,
hit the doors into the side which opened and out onto the track
on the other side, which is very, very dangerous. Fortunately,
there have not been any fatalities yet but it does raise the whole
question of the increasing use of motability scooters which are
totally unregulated, there is no test involved, no protective
clothing. Do we need to do more about regulating the use of motability
scooters?
Mr Clinton: We certainly need
to look at it. At RoSPA we do get calls from people who are concerned
about nearly being knocked down by somebody on a motability scooter.
The data is very sparse. There have been some fatalities and the
Department for Transport did a consultation in 2005 about Class
2 and Class 3 vehicles which was asking a lot of questions about
should there be a training regime, and certainly there should
be. When people are getting a motability scooter they get very
little advice on what is suitable for them and very little training
in its use. There certainly is a need for more action here, but
in terms of the number of casualties the data is not there and
it would be difficult to make a very strong cost-benefit case
in terms of casualties, but that is not the only issue of course.
Mr Clelland: Thank you very much for
coming along, it has been very useful and will help us a lot in
our inquiry. Thank you very much.
1 Note by Witness: Back
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