Law enforcementPolice say they lack powers to probe phone involvement in crashes
Four out of five collision investigators surveyed for the research indicated mobile phone involvement in non-fatal accidents was under-reported, with half agreeing the role of phones was even overlooked in fatal crashes. Police officers are worried they lack the right powers and resources properly to investigate whether a mobile phone was being used by a driver at the time of a crash, a new study has found.
Police officers are worried they lack the right powers and resources properly to investigate whether a mobile phone was being used by a driver at the time of a crash, a new study has found.
Four out of five collision investigators surveyed for the research indicated mobile phone involvement in non-fatal accidents was under-reported, with half agreeing the role of phones was even overlooked in fatal crashes.
UWE notes that three quarters of British officers participating in the online poll undertaken by the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) were unable to report the full proportion of road accidents in their force area linked with mobile phone use each year. A similar percentage of officers indicated that better mechanisms to quickly analyze and investigate phone usage would be most likely to improve data collection.
Dr. Paul Pilkington, a senior lecturer in public health at UWE Bristol, worked with the National Roads Policing Intelligence Forum to survey 134 road traffic collision investigation officers as part of his study into the reporting and recording of mobile phone involvement in accidents.
For his research, Pilkington asked officers across the United Kingdom about the procedure they followed in the aftermath of a collision. He was told phones were only routinely seized and analyzed in fatal and life-changing injury crashes.
Among the responses from officers were:
“Due to the costs and timeliness of such enquiries this is an area that, in my view, is under-investigated…if properly investigated each and every time, the proportion of RCTs where phone use was contributory would increase significantly.”
“We take persons to court where we have seen them on their mobile phones and it gets thrown out. That is with a police witness, so it wouldn’t go through on 3rd party evidence.”
Pilkington said the findings of the survey raised serious questions about investigation tactics, and described the under-reporting of mobile phone use in collisions as a ‘massive problem’.
He said: “Police officers recognize that using mobile phones while driving is an important risk factor for being involved in a road traffic crash. This is consistent with global estimates of the burden of road traffic related deaths and injuries caused by using a phone while driving.
