In a new focused clamp down on speeding, 298 offences were recorded in one day in one town.

Described as ‘astonishing’, the new localised focus is being seen as a big move forward. The  ‘Surround a Town’ day in the Essex town of Harlow was organised by the Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP). It sees resources focussed on a tight geographical area, usually where there are high rates of collisions and casualties.

Foot down

The initiative uses a combination of enforcement and engagement to highlight the importance of safe and legal driving.

The Harlow day took place on 20 July. Police officers detected 298 speeding offences, the highest being nearly 70mph on a 40mph road.

In addition, 45 people were found not wearing a seatbelt, 13 had no insurance. Furthermore, four drivers were pulled over for careless driving, two had no valid MOT.

Officers also uncovered 21 offences involving HGVs and caravans,. These included vehicles being overweight, long driver hours and even having no mirrors. Two e-scooters were also seized.

Tough together

The engagement team based themselves in the town centre. Her they interacted with hundreds of shoppers to promote free ‘Driving with Confidence’ courses for older drivers. Road safety activity books for children were also distributed.

Samantha Wright, road crime operational coordinator at Essex Police, said: “This was a very busy day for the team, and we were shocked to see so many offences”.

The event also revealed that many drivers haven’t been sufficiently maintaining their vehicles. Others failed to keep up with motoring admin.

“Shockingly, a man in his 30s with no insurance attempted to buy insurance on his phone while officers were engaging with him.” Insurers never back-date insurance. The uninsured driver then had to make his own way back to London without his car.

Ongoing journey

“Our Surround a Town events are so important,” says Wright. “We’ll continue to run them regularly across the county. These high visibility operations are to keep road-users safe and to spread the message that no death or serious injury is acceptable on Essex roads.

“We want to thank all those in Essex who use the roads safely – together we can work together to achieve Vision Zero.”