Roads police chief urges stricter sentences for driving offences, warns "basic standard of driving has reduced" and puts cyclists and pedestrians at risk

In a week when there has been much political and media focus on road safety — namely with the government agreeing to introduce tougher laws for "dangerous cyclists" who kill or injure — the UK's head of roads policing has spoken at-length about the need for stricter sentences to deter dangerous and anti-social driving.

Speaking on the Highways News podcast on Wednesday — an interview that has not received anywhere near as much news coverage as stories related to dangerous cycling laws — the National Police Chiefs' Lead for Roads Policing Jo Shiner warned that deaths on the UK's roads have become "unseen" due to their frequency and stated that "the basic standard of driving on our roads has reduced".

Explaining how her father was killed on the roads when she was a teenager, Shiner spoke of her passion for reducing the number of people who die in road traffic incidents. 

The head of roads policing in the UK went on to make the case for stricter punishments for anti-social driving, arguing that drivers who kill or cause serious injury through their actions often receive lenient punishments when compared to other non-traffic crimes.

"We have over 1,700 deaths a year on our roads, we have got to look at it differently," she said. "Sometimes the reporting of those people who are killed or seriously injured barely features in the local papers anymore.

"Anti-social driving is really prevalent on our roads at the moment and we know that it is causing a lot of collisions and I think that's where in terms of the punishment fitting the crime we do need greater deterrence. 

"So one of our focuses within our portfolio is on greater sentencing, so the ability for us to be able to actually increase the sentences which both magistrates and other courts can give, but also greater sentences.

"What I mean by that is that if you actually compare some of the sentences the drivers who do kill people because of the way in which they've drive on the roads versus maybe some other crimes in society, predominantly you see that those sentences are lower and that's just one example where I think families are not feeling that they do get the justice that sometimes they deserve.

> Hit-and-run driver without licence who left cyclist with multiple injuries jailed for a year and disqualified from driving for four years

"Alongside that, if you take offences such as mobile phone use, we know that using a mobile phone at the wheel significantly increases the chances of you having a collision and therefore even though the penalties for that have increased I do think that they should be increased even more. If we can increase the deterrence we can reduce the deaths and serious injuries on our road."

Shiner was optimistic about the impact "fascinating technology" can have in reducing road deaths and pointed to speed cameras, cameras to detect mobile phone use, and steering wheel technology that could sense if a driver has alcohol or prohibited drugs in their system as ways to "design out some of those causes of road deaths".

In the short-term she acknowledged that it is "really difficult" to change attitudes but spoke of the need to, as a starting point, "just calm down on our roads".

"I think the basic standard of driving on our roads has reduced," she continued. "Using an indicator, being in the correct lane, actually knowing what the Highway Code says, knowing which lane to go in when you're going around a roundabout and also just calming down on our roads.

"You know, sometimes I see behaviours where people are just utterly impatient to get where they want to go, really not recognising the risks that are around them, that they're both creating for others but also that others are then potentially creating for them.

"So I think changing behaviours and changing minds is really, really important in terms of just calming people down and also trying to reinforce just how much damage a vehicle can do, particularly to other vulnerable road users, whether that's a pedestrian, a pedal cyclist, a horse rider, it's really important that people take responsibility for the risk that they could pose to others when they're behind the wheel."

Shiner called speeding "the one offence that normally law-abiding people probably commit quite a lot of the time, if they're really honest with themselves".

"And yet they won't see that as a crime," she said. "They may well look down and think, oh, I didn't realise I was doing that, and slow down and correct themselves.
But they would see a difference in that versus shoplifting or versus assault or something like that.

"So I think the whole culture and ideology of road crime and what is a crime, what's not a crime, what is just unhelpful behaviour is something which society really needs to work out."

Earlier this week the government confirmed that it would be introducing tougher laws for cyclists who kill or injure pedestrians while cycling dangerously, Transport Secretary Mark Harper saying the proposed legislation would ensure the "tiny minority" of reckless cyclists would face the "full weight of the law", while protecting "law-abiding cyclists".

Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman reacted to the news by pointing out that 30,000 people are killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads every year, but "less than three [were] involving a cyclist".

'30,000 people are killed or seriously injured on our roads every year, less than 3 involving a cyclist'

Former Olympic cycling champion Chris Boardman spoke to #BBCBreakfast about Government plans to make causing death or serious injury by dangerous or careless cycling an… pic.twitter.com/UbbpWn1l4Q

— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) May 16, 2024

He said: "More people are killed by lightning, or cows. And that same thing [cycling] is joyous. It's good for society. And we put the focus on this minuscule, negative thing. Absolutely, everybody should obey the laws of the road. But is this really the best use of our time to be talking about this now?"

The full episode of Highways Voices – Head of Roads Policing Jo Shiner can be listened to here.