Concerning Numbers Of Officers Injured In Car-Ramming Incidents

Twenty-one South Yorkshire Police officers reported injuries from car-ramming incidents last year, shocking new figures show.

Across the UK, 244 UK officers reported injuries after being involved in incidents where police vehicles were deliberately rammed. This is up from the figures in 2023 (219 officers injured) and 2022 (200 officers injured).

The research was based on a Freedom of Information request. It was prompted by a number of reports of incidents – in the media, from some politicians and from the IOPC – stating that an offender was “unarmed”, even though that criminal had used their car as a weapon against officers. Many car-ramming incidents happen when people are trying to avoid arrest, and can result in officers being seriously injured.

South Yorkshire Police Federation Chair Steve Kent said: “The figures for South Yorkshire are very concerning – they are high for the size of our force. This is a massive issue.

“It’s a risk for police officers that often gets ignored by the media and the IOPC. There’s no quick fix, other than the courts handing down appropriate sentences for people who do it. There’s no two ways about it – using a car as a weapon is no different to using a knife, a machete or even a firearm. It could kill people, and that needs to be reflected in the courts.”

Steve added: “This may be a controversial view, but we could reconsider equipment on police cars, such as American-style bull bars on the front. I know there’s resistance to that because of the danger to pedestrians, but there’s got to be some kind of device that can be put on police cars to protect officers in these scenarios.”

As well as South Yorkshire Police, other forces reporting high numbers of officers injured by car-ramming were Lancashire Police, Merseyside Police and South Wales Police. The force with the highest number of car-ramming-related injuries by far was the Police Service of Northern Ireland, with 66 injured officers in 2024.

But 19 out of 48 forces were unable to supply figures of how many of their officers were injured in this way, due to the time and cost of finding the data. This suggests that many forces do not automatically collate or measure these figures, and that the real numbers of injured officers are much higher.