Commercial Vehicle Unit use supercab to spot traffic offences on our roads

Essex Police’s Commercial Vehicle Unit (CVU) used a supercab to identify unsafe and distracting driver behaviour on the major routes across our county. 

 

The supercab was provided by National Highways between 25-29 September as part of a national project which aims to reduce collisions and incidents, and improve safety, journey time and reliability on major roads.

 

Over the four-day period, 136 vehicles were stopped across Essex, and 117 drivers were reported for a variety of offences, focussing on major roads such as the M11, M25, A12 and A13.

 

The height of the supercab allows an officer to look into larger vehicles to observe distracting behaviours such as mobile phone use. Once a behaviour or cause for concern is spotted, the vehicle is stopped, and the driver spoken to about the offence.

 

During last week’s policing patrols, 35 drivers were reported for using a mobile phone whilst driving, this figure is up on a previous week of action in July which saw 22 drivers reported for the same offence.

 

Last week 20 car drivers and 15 lorry drivers were stopped and reported for this offence.

 

We’d urge drivers to leave their mobile alone and get into the habit of waiting until your journey is finished and then use it when it’s safe to do so. When driving at speed on the strategic network, you need concentration to drive safely, but using a mobile means your attention is elsewhere. 

And seatbelt offences are up too. This time we stopped 50 drivers not wearing seatbelts, that’s 20 more than July.

 

We want to remind drivers of their responsibilities to look after themselves and uphold the law. In the event of a collision, a seatbelt could save your life.

 

Operation Tramline supports Vision Zero, our ambition to have no road deaths in Essex by 2040 or sooner.

 

Offences during the five-day period included:

• 22 mobile phone offences

• 30 seatbelt offences

• 2 speeding 

• 5 no insurance

• 12 driving without due care or consideration

• 4 insecure loads

• 5 stopping on hard shoulders