Number of road-focused police drops considerably
RAC analysis of government data finds that the number of police officers on UK roads has decreased since 2015.
Recent analysis of UK government data shows that there are more than 1,000 fewer traffic officers on UK roads than there were 10 years ago.
It’s a statistic that has the RAC calling for a return to higher police numbers, arguing that “not seeing as many officers in police cars lessens the fear of being caught breaking the law.”
According to the data, in 2015 there were some 5,237 police officers across 43 police forces who were dedicated in some form or another to traffic enforcement. Now there are 4,149 officers focused on those tasks. That works out to 1,088 fewer cops policing British roads - a 21-per cent drop.
Parsing things further, most of those police officers are traffic officers, ie, the most visible and engaged aspect of road policing. The RAC says their numbers have decreased 22 per cent, from 5,005 to 3,889.
“The number of officers dedicated to roads policing is at a 10-year low, which can only be seen as bad for the enforcement of motoring laws,” says RAC Head of Policy Simon Williams. “The deterrent value of ‘cops in cars’ should not be underestimated.”
Williams draws attention to a number of illegal activities that drivers may feel more comfortable perpetrating if there is less fear of cops lurking ‘round the corner.
“Whether that’s speeding, drink or drug-driving, using a handheld mobile phone, driving in an aggressive way or not having tax or insurance,” he says.
Of course, some of those issues can and are being handled by the ubiquitous cameras that cover every inch of this country. Speed cameras, for example, are - annoyingly - more efficient and less biased than a traffic officer (they are also, of course, less forgiving). Increasingly, cameras are also being used to identify mobile phone use and seatbelt violations.
So, it may not really be necessary anymore to have the old-school situation of having cops hide in a lay-by at the bottom of a hill.
And it’s worth noting that the lack of officers doesn’t appear to have negatively affected casualty statistics. In 2015 there were 1,730 reported road deaths. In 2024 (the most recent year for which data is available) there were 1,602. That aligns with a steady, decades-long drop in fatalities.
Nonetheless, the RAC is eager to see things change.
“We’d very much like to see a return to having more officers on traffic duty, or significant new measures introduced to crack down on those who break the rules of the road,” says Williams. “With the Government on the verge of publishing the nation’s first road safety strategy for over a decade, we hope there are plenty of positive measures planned to cut casualties and keep everyone safe on the roads.”
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Chris Cope is a fourth-generation journalist, originally from Texas. He has lived in the UK for roughly two decades and has been writing about motorcycles for most of that time. He has written for dozens of publications and websites in the UK, US, Canada, and Australia.
