Tuesday 1 September 2015

Drive Dynamics - Police cars with no sirens risk response times, federation says

West Midlands Police has a fleet of 109 Vauxhall Corsa cars intended for neighbourhood policing.
The Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said the vehicles had been used for more than 100 urgent calls in the last 12 months.
The West Midlands force said the Corsas were "not intended for response work".
'Frustrating'
The Federation's health and safety official Pete Harkness said: "Officers are ordered to drive the Corsa at patrol speed and obey the rules of the road.
"But the absence of a siren means they often cannot get traffic to move out of their way and this, in turn, can delay them getting to an emergency situation.
"This is very frustrating for the officers and they feel they are letting the public down by not getting to them as quickly as possible in a crisis situation."
The union blames cost-cutting for the use of cars without sirens.
Superintendent Kerry Blakeman, from the force's operations department, said officers who respond to call-outs in cars without sirens have to follow the Highway Code and cannot break the speed limit to cut through traffic.
He said: "Incidents graded as 'immediate' are responded to as soon as possible, usually in a matter of minutes and on many occasions require the use of lights and sirens.
For more Information visit - http://www.bbc.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment