Dorset Police Spell Out the Money they Make from Speed Awareness Courses

Dorset police have said that “The Covid 19 Pandemic has significantly impacted on the receipts from the Driver Awareness Scheme and other income streams”. That includes a figure of £500,000 in lost income from driver awareness courses for the second quarter of 2020/2021 which it has not been able to run – see https://moderngov.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/documents/s22063/06%20-%20Q2%20Panel%20Finance%20Report.pdf . They have put in a “lost income claim” to cover the missing cash.

So the police (and significantly, the Dorset Police and Crime Panel), have the nerve to raid our taxes when due to some misfortune their money making activities sold to us as road safety have to be briefly suspended!!!!

Dorset Police are dependent on that income, cannot manage without it and refuse to listen to the facts that such courses do not save lives or reduce road accidents. The financial motivations they tell us don’t exist come before the concerns of reducing road death and serious injury and before the consideration of more suitable activities that might achieve it. This dishonesty and greed is costing lives.

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using this Contact page: https://www.speed-awareness.org/contactus.html     to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Road Policing and Making Money from Speeding

A very interesting report has recently been published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) under the title “Roads Policing: Not Optional”. It has some particularly interesting things to say about the use of speed cameras but is generally critical about the fall in attention to roads policing. Staff and other resources have been reduced over the last few years, with automated enforcement of speeding offences when all the other dangerous driving activities are ignored.

The chart below from the report shows how road fatalities in the UK have plateaued in the last ten years:

The report states bluntly that “Roads policing in some forces is inadequate”. It is clear that many police forces do not consider roads policing a priority. Fatal and serious injury road accidents where illegal speed is a factor (above the speed limit) also frequently feature a cocktail of drugs, alcohol and crime and hence are not amenable to automated enforcement. The ABD has long argued for more police officers to be deployed on our roads. Instead expenditure on roads policing has been cut and ever more emphasis is placed on speed enforcement when that is a factor in relatively few road casualty accidents. See the ABD Press Release below for more information.

The HMICFRS Report is particularly interesting on pages 28 to 30 where it discusses the financial arrangements associated with police speed camera operations. For example it says: “Crucially, what constitutes recovery of costs is

open to interpretation”. That hints, and quite correctly, that police forces are generating profits that are used on anything they choose as the ABD has previously claimed (see www.speed-awareness.org for details of the evidence). The report also suggests that police forces and local safety partnerships should publish on an annual basis the details of revenue and on what that revenue is spent.

The report also notes this: “This apparent unwillingness to support education over enforcement had led to suspicion among officers, including some at chief officer level, that the focus of activity was intended to increase revenue for the safety partnership. In support of this, they gave examples of some camera sites that they believed didn’t have a history of collisions or other identified vulnerabilities”. And “Elsewhere, we were told that the reason enforcement took place at certain locations was that they were ‘good hunting grounds’, rather than because they had a history of collisions”.

The report suggests that guidelines over how and where cameras are located should be refreshed. But the problem will remain that where there is a financial incentive, the abuse will continue as police forces continue to be short of money.

It is just too much of a temptation to concentrate on speed enforcement rather than focus on the road safety issues that might reduce deaths and injuries.

The whole system needs to be reformed to stop the abuses that cause millions of drivers to pay money to the police and the course operators for “education” which has not been shown to have any road safety benefit whatsoever.

The HMICFRS Report is available from here: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmicfrs/publications/not-optional-an-inspection-of-roads-policing-in-england-and-wales/

ABD Press Release on the HMICFRS Report: https://www.abd.org.uk/press-release-greed-cameras-exposed-in-new-police-watchdog-report/

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right in most browsers or by using this Contact page: https://www.speed-awareness.org/contactus.html     to send us a message requesting. You will then receive an email alerting you to new posts as they are added.

Speed Awareness Courses Suspended

Due to the Coronavirus epidemic, NDORS has suspended the scheme that offers speed awareness courses to drivers. This is to avoid the need for people to sit in classrooms with other people.

It is not clear what will happen to those people who have already been offered a course and accepted as they will now not be able to book a course venue unless the suspension is lifted quickly or the time limit to attend is extended.

See https://www.ukroed.org.uk/covid-19-coronavirus-update/ for more information.

Comment: this is undoubtedly a sensible decision but it would be even better if this whole system of extracting money from motorists by threats of prosecution was abandoned. They should be prosecuted if they have committed an offence. If that path was followed it’s likely that drivers would revolt and the whole illegal money-making scheme would collapse.

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

NDORS Reports Increased Education Courses

The ABD has been campaigning against the money generating industry of police waivers and speed awareness courses for some time. See link below for campaign information. NDORS who run the scheme that enables the police to extract money from innocent drivers without prosecutions have reported a new total of 1.49 million for last year for all such courses – that’s 3% up on the previous year – see https://www.ndors.org.uk/scheme/trends-statistics/

In addition an article in the Birmingham Mail makes it clear that the Police are now campaigning that all money from speeding fines should go to them, as used to be the case. That’s instead of to the Treasury where they currently go. Fines were redirected some years ago after obvious abuses had crept in such as the police siting cameras where they could catch the most infringers (such as open, straight stretches of road) rather than in the most dangerous road safety spots. See the Birmingham Mail article here for more information: https://tinyurl.com/vrgvtpf . We have written to the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner to point out how wrong he is to support such a proposal.

Anyone who wants to stop this illegal and money-grubbing activity by the police should contact their Member of Parliament.

See https://www.speed-awareness.org for more information and to sign up for our AMPOW campaign against the illegal use of police waivers to extract money from motorists in the name of road safety, when the evidence shows there is no such benefit.

Twitter: @AmpowABD

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

Profits from Speed Awareness Courses Still Growing

Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph have reported on the latest rise in the number of people attending speed awareness courses – up to 1.45 million in 2018 as declared by NDORS. That’s counting all the different variants of “driver education” courses now offered. That means the police will have received as much as £65 million as the “kick-back” from the fees paid by attendees – they now receive £45 for each attendee.

A spokesperson for the National Police Chiefs Council is quoted in the Mail as saying that “police forces do not make money from the courses; they only receive processing costs”. But that is simply not true.

The evidence we have provided on this web site: https://www.speed-awareness.org demonstrates that they use this income to expand speed camera operations, to pay for staff and to subsidise other budgets.

Course operators also make very substantial profits and most of them are commercial operations.

In total more than 10 million people have now attended such a course despite the fact that a report published by the Department for Transport (DfT) showed there was no “statistically significant effect on the number or severity of injury collisions” from attendance at a speed awareness course – in other words, NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER! Is it not remarkable that the legalisation of paying bribes to the police to avoid prosecution was ever permitted in the first place, and the Government continues to do nothing about this perversion of justice?

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

How TTC Turned Speed Awareness Courses into a Big Business

An interesting article in the Shropshire Star has explained how local company TTC Group, based in Telford, have turned the provision of speed awareness courses into a big business. To quote from the article:

“Jim Kirkwood, TTC CEO, said: Since the business was formed in 1993, we have helped more than 2.7 million people across the UK. That is some achievement and a long way from when Graham and Jenny Wynn came up with the idea of reducing casualties on the road and re-offending through better driver education and training.

Back then there was only the two of them and a small team in their Shropshire office, but that didn’t stop them from creating a pilot scheme which cut re-offending by 50 per cent. This proved they had something that worked and prompted the Government to push through new legislation encouraging education as an alternative to punishment.

TTC has built on this pioneering work and today is one of the largest National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) training providers, offering seven police referral courses.

The award-winning company employs 130 people at its headquarters on Hadley Park and a 500-strong panel of approved trainers that deliver coaching and NDORS courses on behalf of 14 police forces across the UK.”

Apart from the fact that Mr Kirkwood was incorrect in stating that legislation was put in place to cover education course – there is no such legislation covering the use of police waivers and the offer of education courses – and that reoffending rates are not reduced to anywhere near the extent claimed with no reduction in casualties (see the recent Ipsos-MORI report), you can see how the NDORS scheme has enabled the building of a big private-sector company which generates enormous profits for its owners. Indeed this business is so profitable that it was acquired by Palatine Private Equity recently and is now called Project Track Topco Ltd.

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

Police Bid to Obtain More Money from Education Courses

Alison Hernandez, who leads on road safety for the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, is advocating that the cost of speeding fines and driver education courses is hiked. This could mean the cost of an average NDORS course might rise to £130. By implication this suggests that she wants the fees received by the police from NDORS courses to rise from £45 to £95 if all the extra money was given to them.

So it’s almost “double your money”. She argues that would enable the police to spend more on road safety, but the analysis by the Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) of where all the money went from such courses in 2017 shows that only a trivial proportion (1.3%) is actually spent on road safety. All the rest is consumed in the safety camera industry including paying for more cameras, more staff to operate them, more administration and more trainers.

But do education courses actually reduce casualties? In other words, is there any road safety benefit by sending people on an education course? Not according to the results of a very detailed Government sponsored study published this year on the subject.

Ms Hernandez also wants the money from speeding fines that currently go to the Treasury to be diverted to the police. That was previously changed after the police turned it into a money generating operation – for example by catching motorists where they were easy to catch rather than where there was a dangerous road location. The Government quite rightly put a stop to that and now funds road safety programmes themselves to ensure the money is allocated wisely. But it was the catalyst for the creation of speed camera industry which is still in operation since the police invented diversionary courses using “waivers of prosecution”. The ABD argues this is not just unauthorised, it is simply illegal. See the ABD’s AMPOW campaign against them for more information.

Ms Hernandez is surely just using “road safety” as a poor excuse to raise more money for her police force. She is Police Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall which should be noted by those who elected her.

Roger Lawson

Further information:

Where All the Money from Speed Awareness Courses Went in 2017: https://speedawareness.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/where-all-the-money-from-speed-awareness-courses-went-in-2017/

No Benefit from Speed Awareness Courses: https://speedawareness.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/no-benefit-from-speed-awareness-courses/

AMPOW Campaign (Against Misuse of Police Waivers) Web Site: https://www.speed-awareness.org/

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

Where All the Money from Speed Awareness Courses Went in 2017

UK ROED, the company which operates the NDORS driver education scheme, recently published its accounts to the end of March 2018. UK ROED Ltd is owned by (i.e. is a subsidiary of) a charity named The Road Safety Trust, another company which published accounts to the same date. What do these accounts tell us about the massive slush fund that is being operated in the name of road safety?

UK ROED Ltd had income of £61.6 million from fees received, from which £55.9 million was paid to the police. That’s up from £47.5 million paid to the police in the previous year. Those fees are allegedly to cover the police’s administration costs but are in reality used to fund expansion of speed camera operations and other unrelated costs that have nothing much to do with road safety – see information on our web site here about that: https://www.speed-awareness.org/

Of the £61.6 million in income, only £1.8 million was paid over to The Road Safety Trust – down from £3.1 million in the previous year). That charity spent £1.3 million on charitable activities which mainly comprise funding of research activities. These are no doubt worthy activities. But the surplus of £485,000 was retained. This resulted in the assets it held increasing to £4.4 million. In other words, this is not only a charity that does not spend all of its income, but it is also building up a very substantial financial asset figure which is not normally perceived as acceptable for charities.

UK ROED Ltd had £3.8 million of “administrative expenses” but only £764,000 was spent on staff salaries and pensions. It is not obvious where the difference was spent.

In addition to the £61.6 million that passes through the UK ROED accounts there are the fees received by the speed awareness course operators. One of the largest course operators is TTC 2000 Ltd whose accounts to December 2017 showed revenue of £26.8 million and profits of £775,000. They run about a third of all speed awareness courses. Based on that information and the fact that average course fees are about £100, it’s reasonable to estimate that total fees paid by the 1.2 million drivers attending courses each year is at least £100 million.

Therefore in total the speed-awareness course system is extracting £100 million from the pockets of road users with no immediate road safety benefit whatsoever and with a trivial proportion (about 1.3%) actually being spent on road safety research or programmes. All the rest goes on expenses including the employment of many ex-police officers.

Bearing in mind that a recently published report from the Department for Transport (DfT) showed there was no “statistically significant effect on the number or severity of injury collisions” from attendance at a speed awareness course (in other words, NO BENEFIT WHATSOEVER), it is very odd that the Government permits the operations of these companies to continue. It would seem they are self-perpetuating and self-governed organisations which are outside of Government control and which consume £100 million of pounds every year of road users’ cash while they have no direct impact on road casualties.

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

 

Police in Scotland Abandon Plans for Speed Awareness Courses

According to a report in the Herald newspaper, police in Scotland have shelved plans to introduce speed awareness courses in the country like they operate in England. The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has of course campaigned against the misuse of police waivers and the perversion of justice involved in the police extracting cash by inducing the payment of a bribe to waive prosecution. See our AMPOW campaign here: https://www.speed-awareness.org/ . Only recently a Government commissioned study showed there was no benefit whatsoever in terms of casualty reduction from sending millions of people on speed awareness courses every year.

The Scottish Police Authority have suggested that they have “deprioritised” the introduction of such courses on financial grounds as they would require substantial investment in new IT facilities. But could it be that they have realised how legally dubious the operation of the system in England really is? The ABD has made representations on this subject to the senior legal authorities in Scotland who would have to give permission for the operation of such a scheme. Perhaps this is a case where the police in Scotland have simply been persuaded that it is a step too far?

All we need now is for the UK Government in Westminster to recognise the same reality.

See the Herald story here for more information: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16600735.police-put-brakes-on-plans-to-drop-fines-for-speed-awareness-courses/?action=success#comments-feedback-anchor

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.

Zero Tolerance on Speeding Advocated

A lot of publicity has been given to the call by Anthony Bangham, Chief Constable of West Mercia Police, for zero tolerance on those who exceeed speed limits. He appeared to suggest in a speech to the Police Federation that the existing system of allowing drivers to exceed the speed limit of 10% plus 2 mph should be abandoned. In other words if you are doing 33 mph, or even less, in a 30 mph zone then you should be prosecuted. He also suggested that speed-awareness courses were being used too often as an alternative to prosecution.

Mr Bangham is the road policing lead for the National Police Chief’s Council so his words might have some weight. But even other police officers have criticised the zero tolerance approach on both practical grounds and the probability that it might undermine public attitudes to the police.

There are of course other difficulties. Would a prosecution for driving at 31 mph in a 30 zone stand up in court? Probably not if challenged because speed camera manufacturers don’t claim perfect accuracy and there are often factors that can distort the reading to some extent.

There is also the difficulty for drivers that speedometers may not be accurate, and speed limits are often now set unreasonably low for political reasons by local councillors.

Those who support Mr Bangham’s stance, and particularly Police and Crime Commisioners, should recall what happened to the former Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner, Olly Martins. He was reported in the Daily Telegraph on the 4th November 2015 as planning to switch on speed cameras permanently on the M1 and set them at 70 mph under a “zero tolerance” approach. This was expected to generate “up to a million pounds for his cash strapped force”.  Mr Martins also spoke to the Commons Home Affairs Committee on “Reform of Police Funding” on the 3rd November 2015 where he said, after complaining about shortages in Police funding, that “I am now looking at things like turning on the HADECS cameras on the M1 and driving revenue from that, looking at sponsorship opportunities: does someone want to sponsor panda cars, our police officers’ uniforms, so any….” at which point he was interrupted. But it is clear that he thought financing the police in general from Speed Awareness Course fees was acceptable. Mr Martins failed to get re-elected in 2016, after wide publicity on his views.

But this idea still has legs. It was recently stated by the local Derbyshire “Casualty Reduction Enforcement Support Team” that on the new smart motorway section of the M1 near Sheffield (junctions 32 to 35A) that the cameras would be turned on all the time and the 70 mph limit would be enforced at all times (i.e. 24 hours per day). Many people consider the 70 mph speed limit to be ridiculously low on modern motorways, particularly when traffic is light but of course there is a strong financial incentive to follow Mr Martins approach.

Note that Anthony Bangham is also Chairman of charity the Road Safety Trust (he took over from Suzette Davenport). That organisation controls UK ROED Ltd who administer the NDORS scheme and who receive £5 from each speed awareness course attendee – see http://www.speed-awareness.org/profits.html for the labrythine financial structure of these operations.

Perhaps needless to point out that there is an obvious conflict of interest in Mr Bangham advocating zero tolerance when he is Chairman of an organisation that directly financially benefits from more people attending speed awareness courses!

Comment: Bearing in mind that the police now don’t bother to pursue minor crimes such as shoplifting or burglary due to staff shortages, is it not odd that a senior policeman adopts this stance on the “victimless” crime of speeding. Zero tolerance applied to all crime would be both enormously expensive and morally dubious. As one of my contacts said, perhaps it’s a case of “Police can NOT catch the Criminals – so they Criminalise the Catchables” with automated enforcement systems. And as we have pointed out in our AMPOW campaign, this has led to corruption of the police because of their ability to generate cash from speed-awareness courses.

Postscript: The day after the above article was written, the Sunday Times reported that they had monitored the speed of traffic outside the headquarters of the West Mercia Police. More than 100 cars per hour were breaking the speed limit. The article noted that “The speed trap revealed the cash mountain that awaits if Bangham’s policy is implemented”. It also contained comments from ABD Director Ian Taylor pointing out how impractical it was to have zero tolerance.

Roger Lawson

(Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmpowABD )

You can “follow” this blog by clicking on the bottom right.