30 March 2023
Key points
- Public can now see data on recent traffic offences detected in London
- It covers over 500 offences, including arrests for serious offences
- Updated monthly, it contains sanctions begun (including those which will be cancelled)
- Over one thousand offences a month reported online by the public resulted in a Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) in 2022.
- It does not YET show data by borough but that should be coming…
One of the main conclusions of Baroness Casey’s recent review of the Met was that it lacked transparency and accountability. So it is good to be able to report a step forward with the publication of the London Vision Zero Enforcement Dashboard.
This has been a long time coming for road danger reduction campaigners. The London Assembly Transport Committee helped last year by adding their voice to the calls for such a dashboard (See Recommendation 4).
Without transparency it is impossible to hold the police – or any organisation – to account. So transparency and accountability was a key theme for our 2021 PCC Manifesto (Commit to Act on Road Danger). Here we summarise the good and the opportunities for improvement with London’s new road crime dashboard.
The good
It is comprehensive
It covers all offences (over 500). With the UK Government, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publishes data on court prosecuted offences whilst the Home Office reports on those offences which can be sanctioned out of court. This dashboard has both. Offences have been detected by:
- Arrests
- NIP Safety Camera
- NIP Public reporting
- Traffic Offence Report (TOR)/Fixed Penalty Notice (FPN)—these are the offences detected by officers at the roadside.
With data on speed offences by speed limit
The table below is from the Speed Enforcement Statistics page (pg 8). This shows the focus on 20 and 30 mph speed limits, accounting for over 60% of all speed limit offences. Enforcement on these roads is much more relevant for active travel than the higher speed roads, where enforcement focused in the past.
Table 1: London Vision Zero Enforcement Dashboard Speed Enforcement (2022)
Includes online reporting
It is possible to see which offences are being prosecuted after being reported online by the public. In 2022, 12,054 offences reported by the public resulted in a NIP. Three offences accounted for 72%:
- Drive a motor vehicle without due care and attention (2,182)
- Drive a motor vehicle without reasonable consideration of others (1,686)
- Use of a hand-held mobile phone whilst driving (4,841).
Shows change
With data going back to 2015, it is easy to see the much needed increase in enforcement and with which offences. See below for how enforcement of mobile phone offences decreased whilst the relevant legislation was being amended.
Table 2: Use of a hand-held mobile phone whilst driving (FY 2015/16-2022/23)
It is up to date
The dashboard currently has data up to the end of 2022. And it is to be updated monthly. Previously we had to wait for May for the MoJ data for the previous year. The HO is even slower and usually reports in October (November last year). As the HO reports the majority of road crime, data on the key offences of speeding and careless driving is 10-22 months out of date by the time it is published.
Room for improvement
As with anything, there is room for improvement. These include:
Location data
A major drawback is the lack of data on location. Data is to be provided by borough. It should be possible to see where the offences are being detected, and by comparison, where they are not.
Total online submissions
It is not possible to tell how many reports the public are submitting online, as only those leading to an NIP are shown in the dashboard. It would be good to know the total number, along with the number resulting in a warning letter. This data is provided for Community Speedwatch operations and so should also be provided with online reporting.
Completed offences
The dashboard could be updated to show which offences were cancelled and which were completed. This is worth monitoring. Northamptonshire is one police service which publishes preliminary up to date enforcement activity data and then later removes the cancelled offences.
Want to know more?
TfL has also published a six page Roads Enforcement Outputs Dashboard FAQs. Any feedback on the dashboard can be sent to cposperformance@tfl.gov.uk. Please copy/contact us
(Amy@ActionVisionZero.org) as we would like to hear and learn from you.