Question On Notice No. 1705 asked in the Legislative Council on 17 October 2018 by Hon Martin Aldridge
Question Directed to the: Minister for Environment representing the Minister for Police; Road Safety
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
Tabled Paper No: 2272-
View tabled paper
Question
I refer to the Regional Enforcement Unit of the Western Australia Police, and I ask:
(a) what measures are used to determine the effectiveness of the unit;
(b) what data is collected by the unit to assess performance or tasks performed i.e. traffic interceptions, infringements issued, incidents attended etc.;
(c) will the Minister please provide data identified in (b), per month, since establishment of the unit;
(d) what data is collected by the unit to record the operating location of the unit i.e. patrol routes or local government presence; and
(e) will the Minster please provide data identified in (d), per month, since establishment of the unit that would establish the regional penetration of the unit?
Answered on 29 November 2018
(a)-(e) The Western Australian Police Force advise that the Regional Enforcement Unit (REU) patrol locations include those arterial and secondary road networks based on fatal and critical injury crash data within the South-West, Mid-West Gascoyne, Great Southern and Wheatbelt Regions. The two measures are used to determine the effectiveness of the Regional Enforcement Unit (REU) are the contribution towards the Western Australia Police Force Random Breath Testing target of 1 725 000 for the 2018/19 financial year, the contribution towards the WA Police Force Roadside Oral Fluid Testing target of 40000 tests for the 2018/19 financial year. However, given the large distances and relatively sparse roads (compared to the metropolitan area) covered by the REU, an important outcome is the unit’s contribution to a visible police presence on regional roads. Further, the units contributes towards the number of Category A contacts made by police, including:
- driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs.
- careless/dangerous/reckless driving.
- non-speed camera speeding offences.
- no authority to drive - use of mobile phones whilst driving.
- non-wearing of seatbelts/restraints/helmets.
The output per month since the establishment of the unit is as follows:
|
Jan 18
|
Feb 18
|
Mar
|
Apr 18
|
May 18
|
Jun 18
|
Jul 18
|
Aug 18
|
Sep 18
|
Oct 18
|
CAT A
|
265
|
421
|
551
|
645
|
707
|
602
|
722
|
980
|
872
|
756
|
RBT
|
2184
|
4910
|
3331
|
1254
|
1031
|
2021
|
1471
|
3041
|
2611
|
3221
|
RDT
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
282
|
318
|
179
|
219
|
Please note the data in this table is indicative of REU enforcement effort. Business Intelligence Analytics are unable to discern REU enforcement outputs from the whole contribution of State Traffic. Roadside Drug Test numbers recorded for current Financial Year only as REU was created after the 2017/18 Financial Year allocation. The WA Police Force is unable to provide a breakdown of the locations within which each type of enforcement activity is carried out. However, the attached roster is an example of REU patrol deployments across all patrol regions over one fortnight. [See Tabled Paper]