To receive a presentation from Warwickshire Police and The Office of the Police and Crime Commission on Road Safety.
Minutes:
Chief Inspector Adrian Davis, Warwickshire Police and Abby Simkin, Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner gave a presentation outlining Warwickshire Police’s approach to road policing and the OPCC’s grant funding for community road safety schemes (appendix 1).
In response to Councillor O’Rourke, Adrian Davis stated that he would be happy for Councillors to join the Police on a ride along and see road policing in action. He also sought to provide some reassurance that his team targeted specific vehicles and that the rates of drivers without proper insurance or licenses did not reflect the general population of road users. The penalty for using mobile phones while driving had increased and hauliers who were caught committing distraction offences also risked losing their jobs.
Councillor Gilbert stated that there was a general perception that the standard of driving was declining and asked what was done to ensure that driving instructors were passing on best practice to students.
Adrian Davis responded that the driving test was a much more robust test than it had previously been, but he would take away the suggestion to engage with instructors.
In response to Councillor Gilbert, Adrian Davis stated that every incident needed to be taken on its own merits and that both drivers and cyclists were guilty of using the road irresponsibly on occasion.
Councillor Davison stated that it would be helpful to see the longer term trends around those killed and seriously injured on the roads to understand who the victims were and what structural changes could be made to improve road safety.
The Chair responded that the Safer Warwickshire Partnership was looking at trends and would be able to bring this work back to the Panel.
Adrian Davis stated that part of the safer roads partnership’s work would be to examine trends and look for areas where engineering work was necessary. He stated that a lot of incidents occurred in 30 mile per hour zone where there were no road improvements needed, it was more about a snapshot in time where inattentiveness and bad luck led to a collision.
In response to Bob Malloy, Adrian Davis stated that there was sufficient resources already within Warwickshire to maintain the same level of road policing outside of the Strategic Alliance. There would actually be an increase in resources available as fire arms officers assisted with road policing when not required for their primary duty and more fire arms officers would be based in Warwickshire after October.
In response to Councillor Dirveiks, Abby Simkin stated the bike upcycling scheme did mention a positive impact on anti-social behaviour as a potential benefit but funding had only just been awarded and schemes were not yet up and running.
Councillor Davies stated that she had asked for an update from the County Council and had been informed that the first meeting of the road safety partnership would not be meeting until October with no budget for road safety improvements likely before February 2020. Councillor Davies asked if the Commissioner felt that the Council was providing enough support.
The Commissioner responded that his office had put a lot into re-establishing the road safety partnership and it was regrettable that it had broken down in the first place. He stated that he had been keen start work as soon as possible and so his office had launched the grant scheme without the County Council’s involvement.
In response to Bob Malloy, The Commissioner confirmed that around ¼ million pounds in funding was received each year from road safety courses which could be used to continue the grants scheme.
Councillor Watkins asked for more information on; applying for the second round of grants funding, Operation SNAP, Community Speed Watch and whether the road safety team carry out seasonal checks on delivery vehicles. He also asked whether recycled bikes could be passed to Warwickshire Young Carers and that the road safety messages could be sent out to Councillors across the county.
Abby Simkin stated that she would be able to provide a written response to the Panel.