We must reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads

We must reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads – that’s the message from Roger Hirst, Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex as he marks this week’s National Road Safety Week.

Roger said: “Improving safety on our roads is a priority in both my Police and Crime and Fire and Rescue plans for Essex. More people are killed or seriously injured on our roads in Essex because of road incidents compared to other types of crime and we must do more to prevent this.”

The objective in the PFCC’s Police and Crime Plan is to continue to improve safety on the county’s roads, promote safer driving behaviours and robustly target those who cause the most harm.

Working together with the Safer Essex Roads Partnership the PFCC will:

• Correct the misconception that death and injury on our roads is inevitable by working through SERP to deliver Vision Zero.

• Invest in Roads Policing enforcement and prevention activity
• Collaborate with local councils and developers to advocate for new road networks to be safe and have safety technology built in when they are developed.

• Invest in better speed cameras and upgraded Automatic Number Plate Recognition tracking.

• Co-locate Safer Essex Roads Partnership agencies to ensure a better service to the public.

• Lobby vehicle manufacturers and insurers to roll out active safety technology to reduce driver error, keep pedestrians safe and improve public safety.

• Work with the community and voluntary sector providers to deliver behaviour change and support programmes for drivers caught drug driving and, through better use of intelligence, identify and educate those who are at risk of offending.

• Work with ECFRS and other agencies to educate and protect all road users, by activities such as expanding the Fire Bike Scheme and continued road safety awareness for children and young people through the Joint Education Team.

• Reduce the risk around key areas in our local communities and educate drivers by continuing to support Community Speed Watch.

• Work with rural communities and businesses to understand and improve rural road safety.

• Identify drivers who need remedial education by investing in technology to enable the police to process the increasing volume of video evidence supplied from dashcams through programmes such as Extra Eyes.

• Support the victims of road crimes and their families.
• Advocate for the harm caused by road crimes to be appropriately recognised by supporting an increase in the maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving to life imprisonment set out in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.

 

The PFCC’s Police and Crime Plan was signed off by the Police, Fire and Crime Panel last month and will be formally launched on December 1^st.

More details are available here.