Police Champion Safer Emergency Driving

Cleveland Police are pleased to support an on-going focus to improve the standard of the emergency pursuit and overall driving of over 2000 police officers and police staff who drive police vehicles around the Cleveland Police area on a daily basis.

The recently appointed Assistant Chief Constable Sean White has responsibility for driver training standards across the Force area and the level of accidents and incidents involving Cleveland Police vehicles and volunteered to take an assessment of his own driving with the Forces' senior driving instructor and examiner PC Ian Lince.

Speaking about the one hour assessment ACC White said "Whilst I have been a police driver for 23 years it has been a while since I last received any formal instruction or assessment of my driving. I wanted to set an example and show leadership on this issue by asking Ian to assess my driving as I regularly drive police vehicles in connection with my work. I was delighted that he took me out on the rural, urban and dual carriageways of the Cleveland police area for an hour and put me through my paces. I found it both enjoyable and very helpful as Ian gave me advice about where I had clearly got rusty in my technique during the course of the years. As always, Ian encouraged me to improve my observation of events around me on the road and plan better to avoid any possibility of accident or incident. I am pleased to say that I passed the assessment and authority to drive police vehicles for Cleveland Police."

The Force investigates robustly all accidents involving police vehicles and takes a broader view of trends and events over time. Many police vehicles have black boxes fitted that record data related to the vehicle and driver, and as ACC White commented: "We have an important and special responsibility to protect the public in the course of our work as police officers but we must ensure that when doing so and moving around the Force area we are safe at all times and do not present a danger to ourselves or others. Good, safe and responsible driving is the only form of motoring that we value within the Force and I know that all my colleagues take great pride in their driving and ability to respond in assisting the public. We will, in the coming months and years, continue to champion better, safer driving by making sure that people are trained and accredited at all times with regular refresher training. People of Cleveland can be rightly proud and pleased with the work of their local police service and we aim to reduce accidents and incidents even further."

PC Ian Lince said: "The Cleveland Police Driver Training Unit is committed to delivering the necessary driving skills to our officers and police staff in order they can perform their roles both safely and effectively. Between April 2007 and March 2008, over 610 officers and staff received driver training. This training included the all important "Standard Driving Course" to enable Response Policing and TPAC Training that is essential in bringing high risk pursuits to a safe and swift conclusion; in addition we also conducted over 315 Driving Assessments."

The Driver Training Unit also maintains a Police Vehicle Incident Database which includes "causation factors". Driver training is critical in keeping such incidents to a minimum and in the last year (January 2007 - January 2008), incidents arising from Response and Pursuit engagements dropped by 30% and 11% respectively."