Roads Policing Seminar review: officers given reassurance

1 February 2024

A Suffolk Police Federation rep says the Roads Policing Seminar has given him reassurance about the protections provided for police drivers.

PC Sid Carr, of Suffolk Roads and Armed Policing Team, described the seminar hosted by the Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) as ‘a really good day’.

Sid said the debate titled 'New Driving Legislation - does it deliver better protection for officers?' was of particular interest.

The discussion heard about the new regulations which came into effect in November 2022 and set out the prescribed training that will give trained police drivers the better protection in law afforded to them under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.

And Sid said the contribution by barrister Mark Aldred of QEB Hollis Whiteman about the protections offered by the APP (authorised professional practice), the National Decision Model (NDM), and case law, was reassuring if an officer had to act outside of existing policies.

Sid said: “I found him very good and very passionate.

“He put the point across that if you fall outside of the policy, it’s then a case of the national decision-making model comes in.

PC Sid Carr, of Suffolk Roads and Armed Policing Team.

“You’ve taken the information, what policy do I have? Okay, if I fall out of the policy, what powers do I have that I can do something with to effect an arrest or prevent harm or contain an at-large person?

“It was nice to know someone is out there looking at that and that the experts should be looking at your decision-making.

“It was good to see someone with expertise in that area cared about us. It gives you some reassurance.”

During his contribution, Mr Aldred said that ‘experts should think beyond driving policies’ when looking into the actions of a police driver.

Describing a situation where a driver might be forced to pursue a suspect who is fleeing on foot or bike, he said people may be ‘astounded to know there’s no tactic in the tactics directory, no policy, and there is no training to cover this entirely foreseeable situation’.

But he said that case law meant that an officer could be convicted of a criminal offence for failing to act, so doing nothing was not an option

He went on to describe how drivers could use the NDM, alongside the Criminal Law Act and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, to act.

“If you apply NDM there is sufficient there in policy, but experts are giving too little credence to it’” he said.

Sid said he was astonished by some of the figures that were presented during the day-long online seminar.

Delegates were told that there are five deaths every day on the UK’s roads and that the estimated cost of each fatal collision was around £2m.

“The numbers of deaths are frightening,” Sid said. “We need to take roads policing and safety on our roads far more seriously.”

READ MORE: Roads policing seminar is a chance to assess law changes.