APCC Road Safety Survey results
Most people want drivers who speed to face higher penalties and more money raised from fines invested in enforcement and road safety, a new study suggests.
A total of 66,266 people responded to the survey by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), with 78% saying they saw road traffic offences on a daily or weekly basis.
Seven out of ten of respondents to the survey either agreed or strongly agreed that fixed penalty notices for road traffic offences like speeding and failure to wear a seatbelt (currently £100) should be increased in line with other serious offences like driving while using a handheld mobile phone (currently £200).
And 88% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that some of the money raised through fixed penalty notices should be reinvested into enforcement and road safety measures to deny criminals the use of the roads.
Presently money from speed camera fines goes to central government for general expenditure rather than directly to police.
The survey, the largest ever conducted by the APCC, will be used to influence a Department for Transport (DfT) consultation on roads policing which closes on Monday (October 5).
The results come as new DfT figures show that 1,752 people were killed in Great Britain last year in road accidents, of these 287 were children or young people. Although a 2% drop on the previous year the number of fatalities has remained broadly similar year on year since 2010, which followed a period of substantial reductions in casualties.
Alison Hernandez, Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, led the poll as APCC lead for road safety.
“I would like to thank all of those who took part in this survey, I was pleased we had a fantastic response but not surprised because I know there is a great deal of public concern about this issue,” she said.
“Now we have the evidence to show Government that there is a strong public desire for greater penalties for those who put lives at risk and a desire for increased enforcement.
“Members of the public have clearly had enough of seeing people flouting the laws designed to protect them and their loved ones. They have had enough of hearing about or being directly affected by the deaths of men, women and children and the thousands of lives blighted by injury on our roads.
APCC Chair Paddy Tipping said: “We are delighted with the excellent response to this survey, which has the full support of the APCC. Road safety is high on the agenda for many PCCs who see and hear about the very serious consequences of speeding and careless driving across their communities. It was positive to see PCCs, police forces and road safety charities across England and Wales help publicise the survey, which has no doubt led to the incredible response from the public.
“The APCC looks forward to working further with Alison and her team on this important issue after the findings have been submitted to the Department for Transport’s consultation on roads policing.”
Commissioner Hernandez is working with Government through the Roads Policing Review to increase enforcement of road traffic laws. More traffic enforcement also tackles other crimes on our roads such as drug and weapons smuggling, people trafficking and other serious offences.
“Law enforcement needs to link-up technology, such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), to better exploit the data and intelligence they have to crack down on the dangers on our roads. This will help to both reduce the terrible death toll and detect serious offenders,” she said.
Commissioner Hernandez, who chairs a ‘Vision Zero’ road safety partnership that aims to eradicate road death entirely , with a target to halve road casualties in Devon and Cornwall in the next 10 years, will now lobby for a rise in the level of fixed penalty notices for speeding and failure to wear a seatbelt and will call for revenues raised to be reinvested in local area road safety initiatives and roads policing.
“We know that some people are more likely to drive recklessly when they think there is less likelihood of them being caught,” she said.
“During lockdown there were some extraordinary examples of people putting lives at risk because they believed police were busy elsewhere and despite a significant decrease in traffic levels we have unfortunately seen a significant number of serious incidents.”