From Acting Supt David Minty.
I WRITE in response to correspondence from Mr Vautier (JEP, 25 March) and Mr Billington (JEP, 28 March) and I am happy to explain our current approach to road safety.

Firstly I am pleased to acknowledge that the public interest this campaign has created has helped us to achieve one of our objectives, which was to promote the awareness of speeding generally and consequences of such behaviour.

Our approach to road safety in 2011 will be to focus on different themes monthly, with the intention of making the roads safer for all. We hope that the effect of the whole campaign will be to reduce the number of traffic collisions and, in particular, those which cause serious or fatal injury, we are grateful for the public support shown so far.

We have not stated that the current speed initiative is linked in any way to the recent spate of road collisions; it is actually the media who have made this association. We addressed a Scrutiny panel on the subject of speed limits and said that 11 per cent of collisions on Jersey roads were attributable to speeding and/or inappropriate speed for the conditions.

We have been keen to say that the risks and consequences of collisions in respect of injuries and damage are minimised at lower speeds. Most collisions are caused, as Mr Billington correctly points out, through driver carelessness.

This month we have tried to focus on motorists who exceed the speed limit by conducting a speed awareness campaign. To that extent, we published what we were doing and where we were going to do it. The intention is to slow people down generally, but also in specified locations.

We have done this in three ways: publishing the locations and asking everyone to slow down; high-visibility patrols which naturally slows some motorists down; and more covert speed checks.

There have been a number of motorists reported for exceeding the limit, as has already been published, some at very high speeds, and a high proportion have been detected in the locations we warned everyone we were policing.

We agree with Mr Billington in that we much prefer to educate the motoring public in the first instance, but when that doesn’t work we will have no option but to enforce the law and refer the offenders to the criminal justice system.

Given the results thus far, we will be continuing to enforce the speeding law in all the previously published locations as well as a number of others, but we will not be publishing these in advance; we will just be patrolling in them and reporting any offenders detected.

As we move into April, our next theme will be the law on seatbelts. Again we will make everyone aware of their obligations regarding belting up in a car, including rear-seat passengers, and the obligations on drivers who are carrying passengers under the age of 14 to ensure they are properly restrained by suitable means. We will then enforce the law accordingly. Other themes for future months will include mobile phone offences, drink-driving and careless driving, to answer Mr Billington’s concerns regarding the other features of driver behaviour which need to be improved.

Those who are entrusted with a driving licence and a high-powered, heavy piece of machinery capable of high speed on a public road need to demonstrate they can take these responsibilities seriously. Those who don’t will be asked to face the appropriate consequences.

I am grateful for the opportunity to elaborate on what we are doing and answer your correspondents’ concerns, and am happy to discuss our campaign directly with them or any other reader who would like to contribute.