"Road policing effective in West Yorkshire, despite fewer officers" (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)
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"Road policing effective in West Yorkshire, despite fewer officers"
9:50am Friday 27th January 2012 in Bradford By Steve Wright
Policing of roads in the district is now more effective, despite a decrease in the number of officers, the West Yorkshire force argued today .
West Yorkshire-based road charity Brake has claimed cuts in roads policing officers nationally is putting the public at risk.
The charity says the number of traffic officers across the UK has been slashed by more than 11 per cent in five years – six times greater than cuts to overall police numbers.
Brake is calling on the Government to make it a policing priority to stop cuts.
The charity’s deputy chief executive Julie Townsend said: “This is crucial in safeguarding the public and preventing needless casualties that lead to terrible suffering, and it makes economic sense.
“Investing in roads policing, and stepping up critical checks like breath-testing, helps stop crashes before they happen, meaning less families suffering and reduced costs to the taxpayer.”
Figures released by West Yorkshire Police show it had 296 roads policing officers at the end of the last financial year, down by 19 on the previous year and by 27 over the five-year period.
A force spokesman said: “West Yorkshire Police takes the policing of the county’s roads very seriously.
“Although there has been a very slight decrease in the number of traffic officers working for the Force compared with 2007 to 2011, a Regional Roads Policing Team was introduced in 2008.
“Following the success of that, the Force launched a new and more effective roads policing structure in 2011 to support our neighbourhood teams across West Yorkshire. The new structure has three main hubs – the southern, eastern and western hubs, as well as the Roads Crime Team and the Major Collision and Enquiry Team (MCET)."
Comments(10)
angry bradfordian
says...
11:05am Fri 27 Jan 12
All I know from my experiences of driving around Bradford is that I never see the type of cars that traffic police would use. They seem to have been replaced by speed camera vans in all sorts of inexplicable places (e.g outside schools at nights & weekends) and speed cameras.
All this seems to do is encourage idiotic driving & speeding between cameras that only the traffic police can see.
Cooperlane2
says...
11:11am Fri 27 Jan 12
Who writes this garbage?
You only need to look at the number of uninsured cars, and standard of driving in Bradford to know there is effectively little road policing apart from cash cameras.
We know up to a third of taxis stopped are unfit for the road when they have a crackdown.
We only need our insurers to tell us why our premiums are so much higher in bradford postcodes...uninsure
d drivers, false cash for crash claims, etc etc etc
Apollo
says...
12:22pm Fri 27 Jan 12
We all know the roads are not policed effectively in large parts of Bradford.
The results feature on here often enough.
West Yorkshire Police = Not Fit for Purpose.
Corporal
says...
2:00pm Fri 27 Jan 12
webess
says...
2:16pm Fri 27 Jan 12
H8E US
says...
3:14pm Fri 27 Jan 12
mad matt
says...
7:34pm Fri 27 Jan 12
yezboss
says...
8:07pm Fri 27 Jan 12
This from both personal experience and my contacts.
What has been said about roads policing being effective is nonsense.
In the 1970's in Bradford alone at any one time there would have been at least 8 patrol cars on our roads.
Of late I understand the most one can expect to be on patrol from the north of the county and that means the border with N Yorkshire and the most southerly regions of Bradford no more than 2 traffic cars will be on the roads in the north as above and the same in the south. If that is interpreted as being 'more efficient' then I am lost for words.
When, as an example, if in reality a single crewed car is sent from the north of the county to a collision in the centre of the City of Bradford taking some 45 minutes on blues and twos then that suggests to me W Y Police has 'failed'. MISERABLY!
That is just ONE incidence. There are others and to identify them them would put others at risk of being identified. I challenge Force Command to prove otherwise. I say now they cannot deny this. This is an appalling state of affairs to say the least.
The loss of some 100 Traffic Officers, the closure of the very special Motorway Unit necessitating Divisional Traffic Officers
very likely less or totally untrained in that specialism being sent to incidents on the motorways (hence removing them from their local dutie) is scandalous in the extreme and very likely to result in death and injury to the public and police alike. The WY Police Federation are ineffective in protecting both their members and the public
This is a serious indictment on Force Command and the Police Authority.
Up with the partridge
says...
10:54pm Fri 27 Jan 12
Thee Voice of Reason says...
10:13am Fri 27 Jan 12
.
Facts don't lie, we have hotspot areas of the highest uninsured drivers in the entire UK, so to make such a claim is rediculous.