Welcome to: Road Accidents

There are more and more cars on the road these days, which obviously creates a greater potential for accidents to happen.

For the road traffic police it must be a pretty thankless task having to monitor driver safety, and flag down drivers that are breaking the law.

Sometimes this can result in dangerous chases putting the pursued, pursuant and anyone else on the road in great danger.

Recent figures show that 40 people died in police related traffic accidents in Britain over the past 12 months.

As a proportion of the successful chases by the police the numbers released by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) are very small, but they represent a rise of 66 percent from the previous year.

It raises the question of whether this is just one of those things we have to accept or should the police implement more safety measures?

It's a hard one to call, for many law abiding citizens always hate to see the criminals getting away, but at the same time we wouldn't want to be in the position of Hayley Adamson's family.

Earlier this year the 16 year old school girl was hit by a police car doing 94 mph in a 30 mph zone in Newcastle upon Tyne.

The driver was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving and jailed for 18 months as he didn't have blue lights flashing or a siren.

Clearly in this case the lack of warning sounded by the driver was a contributory factor in the girl's death, but in spite of some high profile mistakes, such errors of judgement in UK policing are rare.

Patrol drivers go through very intensive training for three weeks as standard practice, which is then followed by an advanced course of another four weeks.

Officers cannot carry out pursuits without completing the advanced course, and after take a refresher course every three years.

The IPCC would like to see further changes implemented to improve safety including, having the local police control rooms take a greater decision making role in police pursuits.

It is important that the risk assessment in each situation is made as a team, and that individual officers don't make rash decisions.

That said, there are also factors that the police officer faced with a potential chase has to weigh up in advance, such as the capability of his or her car and their knowledge of the roads in the area.

Accident reporting as a result of police pursuits in the UK is published annually by the IPCC, but there is less transparency in the United States.

It is estimated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that police pursuits end up with on average one death per day in the United States.

However, figures for the whole country cannot be wholly accurate as there is no requirement for any police department to report on their police pursuits, and many do not keep records of them.

Policedriving.com claims that the training in the UK is more extensive than their US counterparts, who they say complete only three days of training on average.

More knowledge of the number and nature of accidents resulting from a police pursuit are surely imperative, as it is a way of assessing and improving performance and giving the public a greater level of confidence.

It seems that UK police drivers are aware of the risks and given thorough training to do the job, and with ongoing monitoring hopefully accidents will begin to decrease.