2:00pm Monday 18th January 2010
By Arron Hendy
MORE drivers can expect to be caught if they speed or break the law as police patrols are stepped up in a new campaign.
Extra officers and a speed camera will be waiting near collision hot spots to clamp down on motorists who are speeding, using mobile phones, not wearing seatbelts or drink driving.
The new No Excuses campaign, launched by Dorset Police and Dorset County Council, aims to cut down on deaths and serious injuries on the county’s roads.
The patrols will be supplemented by educational programmes for those who are caught.
Dangerous and careless drivers will be pulled over by high visibility teams and covert operations in what police have dubbed a “now you see us, now you don’t” policy.
The dedicated team will target notorious roads like the A35 and A31.
Many of those caught will be given the chance to pay £60 for a driver safety course and avoid getting points on their licence.
These courses will fund the £600,000 police side of the operation.
Dorset County Council is spending another £200,000 on advertising to drive home the message of the dangers of the road.
At the launch at Kingston Maurward College, near Dorchester, officials spoke to around 100 guests before Dorset Fire and Rescue carried out a rescue demonstration from a mock-crash.
Robert Smith, the council’s road safety manager, said the Dorset Road Safe partners got together last year when the number killed and seriously injured threatened to rise.
In the end, 2009’s figures are expected to have dropped. The final figures are still being checked but are expected to show that 26 people died and 340 were seriously injured.
Mr Smith is hoping the project will help the council reach its targets.
He said: “Our performance has been found wanting in the last three years.
“We are lagging behind.
“We were doing really well between 2002 and 2006, then for no reason we can find we had two years where the statistics went up.
“But the latest provisional totals for 2009 shows we had a reduction.”
In 2008 the total killed and seriously injured was 294.
Motorcyclists can expect to be among the groups carefully watched to try to reduce the number involved in collisions.
Between one and three per cent of journeys are taken on a motorcycle, but they account for more than 25 per cent of those killed or seriously injured in Dorset .
And drivers aged 17 to 24 will receive educational visits at schools and colleges as they accounted for 30 per cent of the deaths last year.
This age range also accounted for half of the total of those killed or seriously injured.
Mr Smith added: “This is the biggest and hardest hitting campaign all our partners have put together.”
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