Policing in England and Wales, 1918–39 pp 151-185 | Cite as
Motoring Offences and the Enforcement of the Law
Abstract
Before looking at the way in which the laws relating to motoring were enforced it is necessary to examine the official statistics to gain some insight into the scale of the problem as it developed in the 1920s and 1930s. The inter-war years saw a dramatic increase (in both absolute and relative terms) in motoring offences. The Criminal Registrar was sufficiently concerned in 1924 to draw attention to the fact that ‘of every three or four minor offences which occupy the attention of the police and the Courts one is committed by a motorist’, but by 1931 traffic offences accounted for over 40 per cent of all criminal offences. By 1938 almost two-thirds of those found guilty of a criminal offence had been convicted for a traffic offence. Put another way, whereas the most common Edwardian criminals were guilty of a drink-related offence by the end of the 1920s they were guilty of a traffic offence — and the situation simply became starker in the following decade as the figures in Table 7.1 show.
Keywords
Speed Limit Road User Royal Commission Bodily Harm Guilty VerdictPreview
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Notes
- 9.E. R. Clapton (2000), ‘Intersection of conflict: policing and criminalising Melbourne’s traffic, 1890–1930’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Melbourne. As Clapton rightly points out such attitudes were to be found before the advent of motor traffic.Google Scholar
- 11.Alker Tripp (1935), quoted in J. S. Dean (1947), Murder Most Foul (London: Allen & Unwin), p. 21. The Chief Constable of Kendal, in the same year, ascribed the ‘town’s immunity from road deaths’ to its ‘winding old-fashioned streets which compel motorists to drive cautiously’, see Royal Commission on Transport, 1st report, p.4.Google Scholar
- 64.P. Donovan and P. Lawrence (2008), ‘Road traffic offending and an inner London Magistrates’ Court (1913–1963)’, Crime, History and Societies, 12, 119–40. The following details are taken from this article.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 71.See, for example, Gamon’s description of the Western and Eastern views of the police in Edwardian London. H. R. P. Gamon (1907), The London Police Court, Today and Tomorrow (London: Dent).Google Scholar
- 74.Royal Commission on Policing, Final Report (May 1962), PP 1961/2 cmd. 1728, pp. 114–7. The commissioners were criticised at the time for their conservative (if not misleading) interpretation of the findings of this survey. See Ben Whitaker (1960), The Police (London: Eyre and Spottisswode).Google Scholar