PCC welcomes prominent road safety campaigner to Durham

Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen welcomed national road safety campaigner Ruth Purdie to Force HQ to outline the ambitious work she is leading with partners to tackle and prevent dangerous driving.

Ruth Purdie OBE is Chief Executive of the Road Safety Trust as well as UKROEd – the not-for-profit company that manages the National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) on behalf of the UK police service.

The Road Safety Trust is an independent charity which provides grants for projects and research that make the UK roads safer for all.

Ruth joined the Commissioner and Durham Constabulary’s Assistant Chief Constable Richie Allen on Thursday (7th August), alongside OPCC and force staff, for an overview of the victim-led campaigns and lobbying work taking place to protect the region’s road network from dangerous drivers.

The County Durham and Darlington PCC, who is Joint Lead for Roads Policing on behalf of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC), has prioritised ‘Safer Roads’ in her new Police, Crime and Justice Plan, and is pushing hard for changes to toughen existing laws to both prevent and increase the penalties for dangerous driving.

During the visit, the PCC discussed her national efforts to introduce Graduated Driving Licences (GDL) to better protect young and novice drivers - a measure proven to reduce fatalities by up to 40% in some countries.

The PCC has offered full backing to families from Forget-me-not Families Uniting (FFU) group who are campaigning for GDL with the support of road safety charities and MPs. They include Karen and John Rowlands, from Durham, whose son Andrew was a passenger in a car that had been bought by a friend for £100 and was illegal and unroadworthy when it crashed in June 2020, claiming his life.

The Commissioner, who recently hosted a Safeguarding Young Drivers Webinar on the issue which drew support from Ruth, told the campaigner of her ambition to collaborate with other organisations to progress the work and deliver consistent messages to safeguard young people while upskilling them as new drivers.

In other discussions, the Commissioner highlighted priorities from her Police, Crime and Justice Plan. These included her efforts to secure the full cost recovery of those drivers testing positive for drink or drugs which she has been pushing nationally for some time and is keen to build support from other national bodies, and her rallying calls to the Government to reinvest money raised from fixed penalty notices back into local road safety schemes rather than to the Treasury. The PCC was keen to hear Ruth’s insights into how to approach this work going forward.

She also talked about her efforts to overhaul sentencing tariffs for the most dangerous drivers, calling for parity with murder in extreme cases. The PCC discussed her support for a campaign brought by Shalorna Warner who is fighting for mandatory lifelong driving bans for drink or drug drivers who claim lives.

Shalorna Warner’s eight-month-old son Zackary Blades and sister Karlene Warner, 30, were killed when a speeding drunk driver crashed into the car she was driving on the A1 in County Durham on May 31 last year while she was on her way home from the airport.

Following Zackary and Karlene’s tragic deaths, the force teamed up with Northumbria Police for Operation Take Off, which sees roads policing officers targeting holidaymakers who decide to drive under the influence once they touch down at the airport.

Police and Crime Commissioner Joy Allen said: “We were privileged to welcome Ruth Purdie OBE to Force HQ to highlight the positive work taking place in Durham to improve safety on our roads and to tackle dangerous driving behaviours that are often linked to broader patterns of criminality and harm.

“I was proud to share and reflect on the courage of the bereaved families who are leading campaigns locally to prevent others from dying needlessly on our roads and the relentless lobbying work being undertaken to deliver tougher justice and increase the protection of all road users.

“Our roads policing officers and safety partners can take great pride from what has already been achieved locally, but there is a strong desire to do more, and it was valuable to listen to Ruth’s insights and consider how else we can attract investment and seize on opportunities to continue making a difference in the future.”

A leading national road safety campaigner in her own right, the Commissioner will be speaking at the BRAKERoad Safety conference and other national conferences, focussing on the importance of support for victims of road incidents. She takes every opportunity to stand up for victims and their families, lobbying for change to make the roads safer and achieve vision zero – every day without road death or serious injury

During the meeting, the PCC talked about her willingness to work alongside Ruth on any future opportunities and her keenness for Durham to become a pilot area for funding schemes run by the Road Safety Trust or UKROEd.

She also outlined her plans to maximise external funding opportunities to support her road safety work, and her work to secure regional combined authority funding opportunities.

Towards the end of the meeting, the Commissioner delivered a presentation on all the campaigns she has supported to educate drivers and step up enforcement and what had already been achieved.

This included the ‘Life is Precious’ campaign targeting the Fatal Four causes of accidents (mobile phone use, seat belts, drink/drug driving and speeding) which was created by Mari Johnson following the death of her mother, Elaine Sullivan, and stepfather, David Daglish, from Seaham, on the A1(M) in 2021.

In addition, she has appointed a specialist victim support officer, specifically to help those impacted by road traffic incidents, one of only five in the country.

Ends

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Picture Shows (L-R):  Peter Tate (Casualty Reduction Co-ordinator), DRAP Chief Inspector Danny Peacock, Ruth Purdie, PCC Joy Allen, PCSO Sophie Burnip, SpeedWatch volunteer Tom Drummond and PCSO Ian McKenna

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