Marking one year of Cumbria Police’s road policing unit
We joined Cumbria Police’s road policing unit (RPU) for a night to see how the team has developed in the year since it was created.
This also coincided with the first day of Operation Dark Night – a new operation which focuses on improving the safety of pedestrians and horse riders at night to prevent collisions.
Cumbria’s Police, Fire, and Crime Commissioner David Allen and I joined PC Paul Kearns in looking for people who might be missed by cars due to them not wearing anything with high visibility or not using lights if they were cycling or horse riding.
“That’s one part because nationally and also in Cumbria we see an increase in collisions involving pedestrians in October, November, December.”
But, we were also continuing to undertake the daily duties of the unit.
We made our way towards Penrith where most of the team would be starting their night.
The town has anti-social driving hotspot areas and the rural location of the surrounding area made it perfect for Operation Dark Night.
An hour and a half in, we were standing on a street just off one of the main roads in Penrith with four or five other officers as they searched another two men and their van.
They had driven out by a pub so officers stopped them to see whether they had been drinking but soon found that they had cocaine.
David Allen said: “I went out with the Unit as part of Operation Dark Night on Friday October 25 to raise awareness around road safety with the aim to prevent collisions as the darker nights approach – everyone we spoke to, took the advice on board so I hope to see a further reduction in accidents.
“Road Safety is everyone’s responsibility. Driving dangerously not only places the life of the driver at risk but the lives of innocent passengers and other road users – drive within the laws and to the conditions of our roads.”
PC Kearns said: “Drugs, because they stay in the system and impact you longer, people think, ‘right, I’ll smoke some cannabis tonight because I’m out with my mates’, smoke it, go home, sleep.
“Then they think, ‘it’s a new day, I’ll get in my car and I’m going to take my kids to school’, and that can stay in the system and they can be over the legal limit for days after.”
The most exciting moment of the night came when one of the ANPR cameras flagged the licence plate of a woman who is well known to Cumbria Police for alleged drug dealing in the Penrith area.
She had also previously failed to stop for officers and allegedly has links to county lines drug operations.
As we took off down the A66 towards Appleby in the hopes of intercepting her vehicle, it was clear that this would be a high-level catch for Cumbria Police, another car joined the search along the backroads too on the off chance she had taken them.
We were then informed that she might have other alleged drug dealers in the car with her.
Careening down the A66 reaching speeds of 120mph with blue lights flashing away was an incredible experience.
PC Kearns has had extensive training to be able to pursue vehicles at such a speed which was clear as he calmly handled the situation as if he was driving at a serene 40mph.
As we raced down to Appleby, we kept our eyes peeled for the vehicle in question. Most of RPU cars are equipped with ANPR cameras that can read and alert officers to vehicles of concern on the go but the one we were in hasn’t been updated yet.
She wasn’t driving along the A66 so we entered Appleby town where we drove around for a little while but did not find who we were looking for.
Since it was formed last October, the RPU has made 378 arrests with 72 per cent of those arrests being for drink and drug driving.
As well as this, they have also investigated 449 road traffic collisions and attended more than 3,000 immediate urgency emergency incidents.
On the night we went out alone, officers made six arrests, conducted 15 stop searches, submitted 10 traffic offence reports, and stopped more than 30 vehicles.
Inspector Jack Stabler, who leads the RPU, said: “When we launched the RPU 12 months ago the vision was for our officers to take the lead on making our county’s roads safer through targeted enforcement.
“I’m pleased to be able to report this is taking place and drivers who put their own lives and the lives of all other road users at risk are being stopped and, often, taken off the road.
“The RPU is committed to continuing to work with our partners on the county’s Road Safety Partnership to make Cumbria’s roads even safer as we seek to drive down the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads.”
There are a couple of unexpected things that people do that will get them pulled over by the police such as eating and drinking while driving as well as having tinted windows that are too dark.
But, one of the most common reasons why the roads police pull drivers over in urban areas is for not wearing a seatbelt and on the motorway, there are a couple of reasons.
PC Kearns said: “Motorways can tend to be speeding and quite a lot of distractions, so mobile phones, and people not really understanding how a motorway works, sitting in the middle lane.”
While heading back up the M6 towards Carlisle[1] to round off the night, we encountered somebody doing two out of those three things.
We signalled that he should follow us to Southwaite services where PC Kearns asked why he was speeding. Surprisingly, the driver seemed to believe that speeds on the motorway are flexible at night and tried to argue that everyone drives at 80mph.
He was sent away with the expectation that a letter would arrive for him to take a motorway awareness course in the future.