Introduction and Purpose

This introductory chapter establishes the importance of research into road collisions as a global harm issue, before exploring the current UK context in particular detail. It considers the range of approaches to reducing death and injury on the roads, before narrowing the focus to roads policing. It sets out some recent and significant shifts in the roads policing landscape in the UK, before moving to focus on the problem of driver distraction, and mobile phone use particularly. This topic is introduced via statistics relating to the impact of phone distraction and a summary of the relevant legislation relating to it. The chapter then sets out the methodology for the research featured in the book, before providing the reader with a guide to the chapters which follow.