Driving Warning To Younger-In-Service Officers

Younger-in-service officers should drive to their police training so they don’t inadvertently fall foul of the law.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which was enshrined in law last year, gave police drivers greater legal protection.

The law now takes into account the high standards of training received by police drivers, which means their driving will no longer be judged to the same standard of the careful and competent driving member of the public.

However, any manoeuvre performed must be within their training, and officers must be up to date with their training, the Federation has warned.

Steve Kent, South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair, said: “We are very keen to stress to officers that they drive to what they’re qualified to.

“The risks are still present for our officers who are fully up to speed with their training, so there’s a larger issue still with that in terms of the fact that we still don’t think exceptions and the law go far enough.

“But, and this is something that we really try and ramp home to our younger-in-service officers, until you are trained appropriately, you do not drive police cars inappropriately and using blue lights.

“We don’t tend to see a pattern of response officers who are coming out of ticket. What we do see is younger officers who’ve not had change to have the driving course yet, who are driving A to B sometimes putting their lights on and facing the consequences. And they should not do that under any circumstances.”