MPs told by Surrey officer the importance of protection in law for police drivers
19 January 2018
MPs have been told the importance of protection in law for police drivers – by a frontline Surrey Roads Policing Officer.
PC Dan Pascoe joined Surrey Police Federation Chair Mel Warnes at a meeting in Parliament earlier this month (January) to discuss the Emergency Services Response Drivers bill and how important this is for an Officer in his role.
Far too many emergency response drivers have found themselves accused of driving carelessly or dangerously when they have simply been doing their job. This will be addressed in Parliament by exemptions in the Emergency Response Drivers (Protections) Bill
Police drivers currently find themselves judged by the standards of a careful and competent driver, with no recognition given to the trained standards and driver tactics to which they have been trained.
PC Pascoe said: “Obviously, we’re driving with blue lights and sirens which enables us to have some exemptions in law - such as speeding and red traffic lights - however we do need a bit of extra protection.
“At the moment, even though we do all that training, it does not provide us with any further protection beyond our normal exemptions.
“Legislation doesn’t require any training to be involved. So, it’s a silly situation to be in where we do all this training to make us better drivers and be very good advanced drivers, but it provides us with no protection in the long run.
“I wanted to try and open the MP’s eyes up to operational policing, the concerns that we have, and the difficulties caused to us if things do go wrong.”
Roads Policing Officers require 15 weeks of constant training to enable them to do advanced pursuits. Dan – who met with Surrey MPs Crispin Blunt, Chris Grayling, Anne Milton and Philip Hammond -talked about why this should distinguish them from the normal driver in terms of protection.
Dan added: “We’re more than happy with being scrutinised and our actions being questioned, but what we don’t want is officers ending up in the dock on a minor charge, for it generally to be thrown straight out at court. Having protection in legislation for that would be very helpful for us.
“I definitely think there were some raised eyebrows amongst the MPs when it was mentioned that training isn’t taken into account in current legislation. I think it opened their mind up a little bit as to the complexities of police driving.
“The MPs that I’ve met with were very supportive and we look forward to further support from them in the future.”
PC Pascoe has been an Officer in Surrey since 2004. He is one of the users of the Twitter account @SurreyRoadCops – and views this as an important way of telling the story of what police officers do - reaching some 90,000 followers.
He added: “There can be a very bad public image of traffic officers just standing at the side of the road with a laser gun all day dealing with speeding, when, if you follow the Twitter account you’ll see it’s far from that.
“We’re very heavily crime based with the work we do. A lot of emphasis is put on people that are driving illegally, whether it be insurance, drug driving or drink driving, as well as the criminality that use the roads. So, people that use a vehicle to go and commit burglary or to move drugs around inside the country, including moving people around illegally.”
