RSS lawyer assists with important
enforcement study
Road Safety Support lawyer, Andrew Perry, contributed to an important research report released this week, which looks at the way driving offences are prosecuted.
The report, Promoting Safety for Vulnerable Road Users: Assessing the Investigation and Enforcement of Endangerment Offences, was funded by the Road Safety Trust and produced by Leicester Law School.
The project explored the importance of enforcement in reducing harm on the roads by examining how offences such as dangerous driving, careless driving and using a mobile phone while driving are enforced.
As the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) road traffic policy section and one the UK’s most knowledgeable road traffic solicitors, Andrew was invited to provide his expert views.
The report concluded that enforcement has a vital part to play in reducing harm and risk on the roads and the offences are a means of reducing harm through prevention, rather than responding to harm after it has occurred.
It made a number of recommendations for police forces including reviewing their approach to accepting and acting on third party offence footage and that national guidelines should be developed on the submission and processing of this footage.
It also suggested that national guidelines should be developed on when it is reasonable for the police to issue a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) outside the normal 14 day period.
It recommended that the CPS should be more willing to consider prosecuting for dangerous driving in the absence of a collision and that the CPS should be properly resourced, with specialist road traffic prosecutors who work closely with police colleagues.
For mobile telephone offences, the report stated that frontline officers should record more details of the allegations on the Traffic Offence Report to assist decision-makers in considering alternative charges in difficult cases.
