Why are there no lessons learned from road traffic incidents involving the police?

Abstract

An analysis of 64 investigations of pursuits undertaken by the police between 1998 and 2001, resulting in 71 deaths, highlighted a number of concerns about the post-incident management of pursuits by police forces in England and Wales. The current article examines the investigations from the same set of incidents to assess what actions the police forces have taken to prevent such incidents from occurring in future. However, evidence of learning is sparse— with few officers disciplined for their actions, infrequent recommendations for policy change and little sign of systematic organizational learning. The article concludes by considering the consequences for organizational culture of this apparent learning failure and challenges the effectiveness of the current system and the willingness of police forces to change their practices in the light of such large numbers of police-related fatalities.