Project EDWARD update

Last week, our roads policing and specialist operations (RPSO) team took part in a national road safety campaign, helping to prevent death and serious injury on our roads.

Project EDWARD, which stands for ‘every day without a road death’, ran for five days and saw our officers carry out increased patrols, in a bid to promote safe driving and have every day without a road death.

The project promotes an evidence-led, ‘safe system’ approach. The long-term goal is to achieve a road traffic system that is free from death and serious injury.

Throughout the week, officers carried out increased patrols and stopped those who were committing any offences and where possible, provided education on road safety.

The results included:
• five arrests for drink or drug driving
• three arrests for dangerous driving or driving without due care
• nine vehicles seized for having no insurance or no licence
• eight insecure load offences
• 102 traffic offence reports for speeding or using a mobile phone
• 25 no tax referrals
• 136 negative drink or drug tests
• 416 notices of intended prosecution for speeding, using a mobile phone, and not wearing a seatbelt
• zero fatal road traffic collisions.

Sergeant Lewys Davies, who led this campaign said:

"Our officers take part in several road safety campaigns throughout the year, all of which have the same goal: to help keep our roads safe for all, and to keep the roads free of death and serious injury.

"I'd like to thank all the partner agencies who helped during this campaign, including GoSafe, the Welsh Ambulance Service, and South Wales Fire and Rescue Service. As you can see from the results, we had some great outcomes.

"Officers will continue to patrol the roads of Gwent to help keep all road users safe, and those found to be committing offences will be prosecuted."