SWIFT, decisive action should be taken by the Government to provide protection for police drivers from the unfair prosecutions they can face.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the verdict from Essex Police Federation which says delays to the bill, which would provide better protection for blue light drivers, is a can being \u2018kicked down the street.\u2019<\/p>\n
Currently the legal standard of a \u2018careful and competent driver\u2019 applies equally to the emergency services as it does any other member of the public.<\/p>\n
It means officers can be prosecuted for dangerous or careless driving \u2013 even if they follow police tactics and drive in accordance with their training.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe can is continuing to be kicked down the street and at the moment there\u2019s no incentive for the powers that be to take any meaningful action, to do anything about it,\u201d said Federation Chairman Steve Taylor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re running a survey, there\u2019s a consultation running, there\u2019s a bill slowly making its way through the Houses. There\u2019s no swift, decisive action being taken and that\u2019s because there\u2019s no real incentive for them to take it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole thing is daft and again we are not being listened to when we highlight these concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are training someone to do something and then not supporting them when they do it.<\/p>\n
All officers want, Steve added, is the ability to cite their training should they find the need to defend themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not after a get out of jail free card – all this legislation allows us is the ability to fall back on our training and experience in these areas when called on to defend our actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not contrary to the natural laws of justice, it\u2019s not an unreasonable position at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to lobby Government and at the same time we should keep our options open as to what we can do to move it up the agenda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SWIFT, decisive action should be taken by the Government to provide protection for police drivers from the unfair prosecutions they can face. That\u2019s the verdict from Essex Police Federation which\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1767,"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\/4943"}],"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=4943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4944,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4943\/revisions\/4944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}