Traffic police in South Yorkshire 'under the cosh' around 'recruitment & funding pressures'
New data shows the number of road policing officers in England and Wales has fallen by more than a fifth in the last decade.
There are concerns people 'aren't scared' of driving 'recklessly' across South Yorkshire & North Derbyshire anymore.
It's as new figures show the number of roads policing officers in England & Wales has fallen by over 20% since 2015.
Steve Kent is the Chair of the Police Federation across Sheffield, Doncaster, Barnsley, & Rotherham.
He says the situation is getting worse year by year:
"In the old days you used to see road traffic officers on the motorway to deal with people undercutting, middle lane hogging, and those kinds of things.
"This has been replaced by is Highways Officers - who do a great job - but they aren't cops at the end of the day.
"Highways Officers aren't a deterrent because people know they don't have any legal powers around bad driving and speeding.
"There needs to be a return to a deterrent on the roads.
"Our traffic officers are absolutely under the cosh in our force.
"We are one of the poorest funded forces in the country, so it's not like we've got pots of money to recruit more traffic officers, but there needs to be centralised funding and growth within the traffic policing world."
Earlier this year - the UK government announced a cash increase of £1.1 billion for police forces in England & Wales - by March 2026.
You can read more about this in the link below:
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2025-01-30/hlws403