The charitable objective of PACTS is to protect human life through the promotion of transport safety for the public benefit. It brings together academics, practitioners and parliamentarians to share experience and discuss best practice, and to analyse emerging developments in the transport safety field. In recent years, new technologies, legislative measures and operational developments have led to a rapid pace of change within road traffic enforcement. This study offers both an overview of new and emerging technologies and a contribution to debates about the future direction of roads policing. The report calls on politicians, criminologists, civil servants, police and transport safety professionals to reassess the value and role of roads policing. Along with education and engineering, road traffic enforcement can play a major part in reducing unnecessary death and injury on our roads. Roads policing also contributes to reducing other types of crime and anti-social behaviour. In order to succeed, however, it needs to be given resources and support. Recommendations in this report focus on more effective use of existing resources in order to reduce road casualties further. Among the findings is the central role of information in supporting enforcement technologies. If the intelligence and data are not right at the outset, the rest of the enforcement process will be flawed. The findings of this report have already contributed to legislative improvements. Early stages of the research highlighted the need for new police powers to combat unlicensed driving, better police access to insurance information and powers for evidential roadside breath testing. Following interventions in the House of Commons by David Heath MP and in the House of Lords by Viscount Simon and Baroness Anelay of St Johns, all of these measures were included in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting