Police vehicles involved in 760 crashes in three years
Police have forked out over half a million pounds after their cars were involved in more than 760 crashes in Lincolnshire in three years.
New figures showing police drivers have been to blame for 349 of the 764 collisions have raised questions about driving standards at the force.
The statistics show hundreds of thousands of pounds have been paid in repairs, compensation and legal costs – while a string of cars have been written off.
Officials were forced to release the information to the Echo under the Freedom Of Information Act.
Senior officers at Lincolnshire Police have launched a robust defence of driving standards – and say crashes only occur about once every 29,000 miles.
Fleet manager Jim Ryan said: "Every collision where a police driver is considered at fault is carefully examined and, where it is considered that retraining is appropriate, that will be carried out before that officer is allowed to drive official cars again."
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "This is a financial drain as well as a serious risk to life and limb."
For more on the figures, see Monday's Echo.
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by Tony Diggins, Nettleham
Tuesday, February 09 2010, 4:55PM
“As there appears to be a continuing interest in Monday's story about police car collisions, I thought it was worth clarifying the figures which were released to the Lincolnshire Echo under the Freedom of Information Act. Our recording processes changed after the 2007/08 year and the figures released for 2008/09, like the previous years, included all minor paintwork damage and items such as windscreen and wing mirror replacements. The figures for actual collisions in 2008/09 totalled 130 incidents. Even these include incidents of criminal damage to police vehicles and where police vehicles are rammed during incidents. Using this figure and the 7.5 million miles travelled by our vehicles in 2008/09 it provides an average of 57,490 miles between each incident. As I have already said, every collision where a police driver is considered 'at fault' is carefully investigated and where it is considered that re-training is appropriate, that will be carried out before the officer is allowed to drive police cars again.
Tony Diggins
Coporate Communications
Lincolnshire Police HQ”
by Ian Bower, Lincoln
Monday, February 08 2010, 6:55PM
“Last week three times I saw police using their mobile phones whilst driving!”
by Laura norder, Nettleham
Monday, February 08 2010, 5:56PM
“So thats why we have so many new cars in the compound,. because the old one are in the garage being repaired. coupled with putting the wrong fuel in the car the police driving skills are not that good really are they.”
by Laura norder, Nettleham
Monday, February 08 2010, 5:54PM
“So thats why we have so many new cars in the compound,. because the old one are in the garage being repaired. coupled with putting the wrong fuel the police driving skills are not that good really are they.”
by julie, lincoln
Monday, February 08 2010, 4:02PM
“yes lynn but the police officers who caused the accident when they ran into my sons car did not do a breath test they were taken away from the sceen of the accident by there officer in charge it shows on court papers they did not do a breath test my question would be why”