Søren wrote:If you see an offence of driving without due care an attention or careless driving, fulfilling the definition of the offence, what do you do? Do you ignore it, because you believe CPS won’t run it? If this is your chosen action, Where will that get us? We are potentially at risk of sidelining much more serious risk behaviours on the road, simply because they are harder to evidence, and this is a ridiculous situation, especially as we have the facility of unmarked cars and video at our disposal, if our word descriptions are not up to the job.
If you stop and simply warn the driver for something which you feel he should be reported for, then we are not letting the prosecution departments, the CPS and the statisticians know the level of the problem.
If a driver is having difficulty driving a car round a roundabout because they are on a mobile phone, then that is a Sec 3 RTA offence, because their driving has ‘departed from the standard of care and skill that in the particular circumstances of the case would have been expected by a careful and competent driver.’
Where there is evidence of unacceptable driving risk, we should be dealing with the actual offence. Whether CPS decide to run should not be a factor in our original decision making. We should be questioning via our supervision whether their negative decisions are correct. We should be discussing the matter with CPS face to face.
Do you not consider it ludicrous that we have cameras which cause more danger than they prevent, nabbing motorists for a safe 79 on a quiet motorway and obtaining a 90% plus level of prosecution despite the absence of risk. At the same time you have offences for which risk has been identified from a trained traffic officer which passes the
‘careless driving standard’ test, and you have some suit in an office telling you he is not prepared to run it.
Nationally, we bemoan the loss of numbers and loss of skill in Road Policing. But the tendency to capitulate on real risk offences with a shrug and a resignation frustrates the hell out of me, and is partially the cause of the lower tier of priority allocated to road policing over the last few years. Careless driving needs to be considered on its own merit, not linked to an RTC, not linked to level of injury, but linked solely to the substandard nature of the driving. We need to remind our supervisors and our prosecution departments of this. They are not paid well to have an easy life!
In Cumbria we have a traffic group which has largely retained its numbers over the last 10 years, and we have a strong leadership which sees the value of road policing related to risk and criminality. Most of our traffic bases are also contained in the same office block as our prosecution department and CPS, so we can and do discuss cases fairly in depth and on a regular basis. Our police prosecution decision maker and his depute are ex traffic, which also helps, and the head of CPS in Cumbria is refreshingly stubborn in his desire to see the more serious traffic offences prosecuted when serious injury or death has occurred.
So stop your drivers and interview them, gain and submit best evidence and discuss it with CPS and supervision. You can make a difference to the way they perceive things.
To answer your question, I’d expect about 50% of my RTC 'due cares' to go to driver improvement course, and the remaining 50% would be prosecuted.
Most of my non-RTC 'due cares' will either get a letter of caution or be prosecuted. (again probably 50:50). If it is believed that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, the prosecution dept will discuss the matter with me to see if it can be firmed up in any way.
Posted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 12:07 pm
