Roads policing
Roads policing is fundamental to tackling criminality and dangerous driving behaviour. Safer roads mean safer streets and safer communities.
The UK has historically had some of the safest roads in the world and yet there are still more than five deaths and many more serious injuries on our roads every day.
These tragic and often avoidable events have a significant and life-long impact on families, and on the individuals who have to live with their injuries. That is simply not good enough and we must all share the responsibility to influence the way in which our roads are respected and used.
In addition, we know the UK’s road networks are regularly exploited for criminal gain, and the way in which we police our roads must tackle and disrupt this criminality.
As set out in the NPCC Roads Policing Strategy, we must all work together to reduce criminal activity, network disruption and, most importantly, save lives. Effective policing of our roads is an essential means to achieving this. Policing is here to protect everyone on the roads and when road users put others' lives at risk through dangerous driving behaviour, we will robustly enforce the law.
The NPCC Roads Policing portfolio provides national, regional and local leadership and direction through our working groups who offer advice, best practice and, where appropriate, set national standards on a wide range of roads policing activity from police pursuits to vehicle recovery, from national operations to police driver training.
Key teams within NPCC Roads Policing
National Roads Policing Operations, Intelligence & Investigation facilitates joint
working between UK police forces, European Traffic Police Network, law enforcement agencies and other key stakeholders. This coordination supports policing in reducing road casualties, disrupting criminality, countering terrorism, combating anti-social driving, and offering public reassurance and victim support.
The team leads on the national operations calendar which includes Op Limit (Christmas drink and drug driving), Op Spotlight (focus on the fatal 4 driving offences) and Op Dark Nights (vulnerable road user focus).
Op Topaz is the operational name for a strategic partnership between NPCC Roads Policing and the Department for Transport (DfT), supported by the Home Office, to enhance the NPCC and partner response to reducing the 1,700 road deaths and 30,000 serious injury collisions every year on our roads.
The partnership explores the potential for greater collaboration in national roads policing to tackle crime as a ‘cross-cutting capability’ and is designed to increase our responsiveness to emerging threats and issues. This was set out in the 2023 Strategic Policing Requirement and recognises the fact that whilst not all road users are criminals, all criminals are likely to be road users, with their road use representing a valuable opportunity to understand and address their activities.
Research also shows that criminals are not specialists in the laws they choose to break, and that road traffic offending can be a flag indicating involvement in other forms of criminality, as well as being linked to the causing of serious incidents on the roads.