Support for move to better protect those officers who stop officers

6 April 2020

The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) is supporting a Federation campaign to include a legislative change that would allow police to make people get out of a vehicle on request in the new Police Powers and Protections Bill.
 
Tim Rogers, deputy secretary of West Midlands Police Federation and the Federation’s national lead on pursuits driving, has called for a change to Section 163 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 due to the growing number of officers being injured by people using their cars as weapons.
 
“I asked for the support of the NPCC with this and am pleased to report that its roads policing lead, Antony Bangham, offered some good advice and, importantly, his and the NPCC’s full support for this change,” says Tim.
 
“Essentially, this is all about officer safety. We are seeing more and more people willing to use vehicles in an aggressive way. In our Force area alone, there are three incidents a week in which someone uses a vehicle against an officer as if it was a weapon. Last year, two of our officers received life-threatening injuries in these type of attacks and they could so easily have been killed. We need to reduce the danger to officers in that phase of stopping and obtaining more information when they are so vulnerable.
 
“Officers are having to deal with people who refuse to get out of a car when asked and find themselves having to deal with drivers they have stopped through a small gap at the top of the vehicle’s window. This is totally unacceptable and prevents them developing the grounds for breath tests, drug wipes, stop and account and stop and search.”
 
Tim adds: “The simple addition of a (1A) to s163 of the Road Traffic Act could mean that where a vehicle has been stopped by police the occupants must comply with a direction to leave the vehicle.”
 
An official in the Department for Transport is writing elements of the new legislation planned through the Police Powers and Protections Bill which was included in the Queen’s Speech in December.
 
The bill, in response to a Federation campaign led by Tim, also aims to recognise police drivers’ skills and training so that these can be taken into account in law, rather than officers currently facing prosecution and conduct proceedings for doing their job since they can only be judged against the standards of the careful and competent driver.
 
Tim has since seized the opportunity offered by the new bill to seek the change to s163 and the Federation is also asking for the ability to report collisions online rather than in person at a police station to be included.
 
The Federation is now writing to the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to formally ask for these extra provisions to be covered by the legislation.