Staffordshire Police Federation chair Phil Jones has expressed his disappointment at a BBC Panorama investigation which claimed that “weak policing” is to blame for road deaths.
The documentary, which aired on Monday, was looking into the reasons why deaths and serious injuries are higher than a decade ago, despite vehicles becoming safer.
Phil said: “We know that police officers in cars saves lives. That is why the Federation consistently warned that reducing police numbers and budgets would inevitably have tragic consequences, and unfortunately we’re seeing that.”
The BBC programme revealed the results of a Freedom of Information request from 34 forces, that the number of dedicated traffic officers had fallen from 5,014 in 2016, to 4,257 currently. And the number of police officers tasked with enforcing road laws has dropped by 15 per cent in that time.
Phil laid the blame for a failure to reduce road casualties, squarely with those who underfunded policing over the last decade.
He added: “The HMICFRS report in 2020 showed there had been 34 per cent real terms reduction in spending in England and Wales for the six years to 2019, which is about £120 million. Between 2015 and 2018, on average 1,610 people lost their lives each year and many more were seriously injured. Who knows how many of these incidents could have been avoided if we had been able to police the roads in the way we would want to?”
Gemma Fox, roads policing lead for the Police Federation of England and Wales, added: “Every roads policing officer I know personally wants to be pro-active, but the lack of resources has meant the public information side of the role has not been prioritised and this has been really damaging.
“The reality is the number of specialist officers has rapidly declined in recent years alongside a marked reduction in resources. We must see further investment as there is so much more which can be done to improve safety for colleagues and the public.”
