There is more we can do to reduce the number of people killed and injured on our roads. Over the last few years we have worked together with the Safer Essex Roads Partnership (SERP) to educate drivers better, and enforce more effectively against bad and criminal driving. The number of people killed or seriously injured on the roads in Essex has been brought down by 40%.  

But criminal and dangerous driving still kills more people in this county than all other crimes put together. 

Together with SERP we have committed to Vision Zero, with the aim to stop people dying on our roads. That will mean more Roads Policing and investment in better speed cameras and upgrading Automatic Number Plate Recognition tracking, to improve enforcement. It will also involve an increase in driver awareness programmes, to make our drivers safer, and a revision to the county’s Speed Management Strategy to make our roads safer. The SERP agencies will be co-located so they can operate more effectively. I will lobby the vehicle manufacturers to roll out active safety technology to reduce driver error.

I will work with Community and Voluntary Sector providers to invest in behaviour change and support programmes for drivers caught driving under the influence of drugs, as this offence continues to increase and now exceeds those caught for the offence of drink-driving.

More police patrols and working with Fire & Rescue and other agencies will educate and protect all road users, such as through expanding the Fire Bike scheme and continued road safety awareness for children and young people through the Joint Education Team. 

I will continue to support Community Speed Watch, which reduces risk around key areas in our local communities and does so much to educate drivers. 

Dash-cam evidence from other road users can help us identify drivers who need remedial education. I will invest further in technology to enable the police to process the increasing volume of video evidence, through such programmes as Extra Eyes.

I welcome the move by the government in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act to increase the maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving to life imprisonment.