FEARS have been raised by Essex Police officers that a lack of traffic cops is contributing to an alarming number of people being killed or seriously injured on the county\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n
It was revealed recently that seven people died on the county\u2019s roads in the space of 13 days \u2013 and 49 people over the past 12 months.\u00a0In the Police and Crime Commissioner\u2019s February 2016 data, the number of collisions in the county had increased year on year (19.5%).<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\n The number of fatalities also rose (19.5%), as well as the number of serious injuries on Essex\u2019s roads (8.3%).<\/p>\n \u201cWith falling numbers of roads policing officers and a lack of enforcement I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if that was linked to the number of road deaths and serious injuries on our roads,\u201d said one experienced Essex Police officer, who asked not to be named.<\/p>\n \u201cI personally think it\u2019s not a coincidence. At the end of the day there\u2019s no point sending out a message about wearing seatbelts, reducing speed and cutting down the number of drink drivers, if police officers aren\u2019t actually out there enforcing it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to a survey carried out by the RAC motoring organisation in 2015, the number of traffic officers in Essex fell by 71% from 2010 to 2014, the second biggest drop in the country.<\/p>\n The force responded that while the number of dedicated roads policing officers had dropped from 140 to 80, the 80 remaining officers were being supported by 111 officers and staff in other specialist roads policing functions.<\/p>\n The force is also reducing the number of roads policing bases in the county from 4 to 2. Currently, there are bases at Langdon, Chigwell, Chelmsford and Stanway but the Langdon and Chelmsford bases are closing.<\/p>\n The officer added: \u201cI think it\u2019s certainly going to reduce the amount of time that officers will have to spend on patrol and also their response times to crashes are going to take longer.\u201d<\/p>\n What can be done to reduce road deaths and injuries? \u201cI think more visible policing, more enforcement, traffic officers being out there, being seen by the public and being seen in areas where we\u2019re actually getting the crashes,\u201d the officer said.<\/p>\n Mark Smith, Chairman of Essex Police Federation, said: \u201cEssex Police Federation have serious concerns about the lack of policing the roads of Essex are receiving since cuts were made to our Roads Policing Unit.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last year alone we have seen 49 road related deaths and more than 700 serious injuries on Essex roads. I do not think the cuts are the only factor here – but I do believe they are a significant factor.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the cuts were made to the RPU, the public were told it would not affect the policing of our roads because the smaller unit would concentrate on their specialist role. I know this has not happened and officers have not been allowed to concentrate on policing our roads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe force is again looking at reorganising the Roads Policing Unit, due again to the cuts, and I have concerns this will only add to the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n An Essex Police spokesman said: \u201cWe are not aware of any evidence proving a causal link between the number and location of roads policing bases and the number of those killed or seriously injured on Essex roads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe recent increase in KSIs, with eight more fatalities in the 12 months to February 2016 than the previous 12 months, is concerning and we need to continue to police intelligently and encourage behaviour change in drivers.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, a decade ago (commonly cited as being a time of significant growth in police numbers) over 1,000 people a year were killed or seriously injured in Essex (1,174 KSIs in 2006 compared to 730 in 2015, a 37.8% reduction).<\/p>\n \u201cA great deal of work continues to be undertaken by Essex Police and our partners in the Safer Essex Roads Partnership to reduce casualties. We carry out intelligence-led road safety operations on a daily basis and last year we arrested 315 motorists as a result, as well as dealing with more than 5,500 people for not wearing seatbelts and almost 4,000 for using mobile phones.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also seized 870 vehicles for not being roadworthy and gave out 2,500 warnings to rectify vehicle defects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FEARS have been raised by Essex Police officers that a lack of traffic cops is contributing to an alarming number of people being killed or seriously injured on the county\u2019s\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2746"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2752,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2746\/revisions\/2752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}