BBC reports
West Mercia Police were involved in an average of eight crashes a week over two years in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire.
There were 844 accidents between 2005 and 2007, figures have shown.
The force said the fact a crash is recorded does not mean a vehicle actually collided with another one or that the police were at fault.
It is compulsory to refer cases to the Independent Police Complaints Committee when there has been a serious accident.
Seven such collisions were referred to the IPCC between 2005 and 2007 - two are still under investigation.
Undoubtedly Zero NCB
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Typical press rubbish. A Police car doesn't even have to be anywhere near an RTC for it to be classed as a POLAC. If a car makes off from a Police car (even when the Police don't pursue) and it crashes 2 miles down the road, it's classed as a POLAC.
Yesterday, car stops to let a Police car, going in the opposite direction, down a narrow road. As it stops, Mr Magoo behind runs into back of said car. That is classed as a Police accident.
But why let the truth get in the way of a good story.
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Or put in another way 837 MOP were in collision with Plod?
dvd
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I used to be in a job where we carried out checks on police cars-we supplied a substiute vehicle while carrying out the checks-it was suprising how often the vehicles were not available to us due to being in the garage for repairs to body/suspension etc. and these were area cars not pursuit.
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... Typical press rubbish....
Mmm....844 crashes is a canny few, even if you do use police doublespeak to brush as many as possible under the carpet.
A polis here in the North East told me motor patrols/training were being reduced by budget cuts, and this would lead to more accidents as 'untrained' police drivers took on jobs previously carried out by the trained ones.
That was a couiple of years ago, so, to use a couple of common sayings:
Instead of shooting the messenger, perhaps it's a case of the chickens coming home to roost.
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As one who lives in the middle of the West Mercia region the local press are noticable for the lack of reports of crashed police cars...
I'd have thought that with, on average, one a day over that period i may have seen something?
Edited by b308 on 14/08/2008 at 14:01
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... Typical press rubbish.... Mmm....844 crashes is a canny few even if you do use police doublespeak to brush as many as possible under the carpet. A polis here in the North East told me motor patrols/training were being reduced by budget cuts and this would lead to more accidents as 'untrained' police drivers took on jobs previously carried out by the trained ones.
>
Get a grip! Where has anyone used 'Police doublespeak'. I'm sat on hardshoulder having stopped a HGV. Another HGV then sideswipes the stopped HGV. That is classed as a POLAC. No damage to Police vehicles and not caused by Police. I can add a good few of those in the last twelve months.
Joe Public runs into back of Police vehicle. Not caused by Police, but recorded as a POLAC.
And your statement about 'untrained' drivers replacing 'trained' ones. Could you provide some evidence of this, or is it a friends, uncles, aunties, girlfriend told me. The fact is driver training is being tightened up. You certainly can't get behind the wheel of anything without having done the appropriate course.
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mlc,
As the BBC report accepted, and as I accepted in a slightly different way, there is no argument that many of those 844, er, 'incidents', are not what the public might understand as 'police car in crash'.
I think everyone accepts police cars will be involved in crashes, too. The question for this force is are they getting too many?
As regards the trained and untrained drivers, as I put in the original post, it was an informal discussion I had with a traffic cop.
I offer it for what it was, a copper bemoaning his lot, no more and no less, although it made sense at the time.
It seemed to me stupid to be running down the motor patrols department when there was clearly plenty of demand for its services.
Don't think it's anything new, the reduction of traffic officers has been lamented on here several times.
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all of the following would be recorded on a police collision database:
1, minor reversing dink in backyard. 1" scrape on bumper
2, police car on emergency call, one car (member of public)stops in traffic to help
progress, another one doesn't and hits the stopped car
3, pursuit, pursued car drives off road intentionally and collides with something off road in a
field
4, police car driven up kerb to try to follow pursued car, catches sill on high kerb
5, police car tries to stop another car. Car drives off at speed. Out of sight and many
hundreds of yards away car has accident.
etc, etc, etc
every single tiny thing is recorded nowadays and as mentioned above this includes the 'vicinity only' ones, which lets face it fits the legislation, because the Road Traffic Act definition of an accident includes 'if owing to the presence of a motor vehicle on a road'...
oh and they're called collisons now, not accidents
so of that 800 odd figure, the vast majority of them will be exceedingly minor
Edited by Westpig on 14/08/2008 at 18:23
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When I first started on Traffic every Officer had a tin of Ford Diamond White spray in their lockers for that odd little scuff!
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some years back (when the cars were white, not silver) i had a chap posted to my team, that i'd been trying to prevent for some months as he was a 'character'. Before long he informed me of some damage he'd caused to one of the cars. I thanked him for doing it properly and informing me, then went out to examine the damage, which was a long single scrape along the offside... i noticed some 'white stuff' at the front part and asked him what it was.
his response? .... " Well obviously i tried to typex it, but as it went further back the scratch got too deep"
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