10:00am Friday 30th July 2010
POLICE arrested an illegal immigrant and seized two cars during one of the last road safety checks in Oxfordshire to be co-ordinated by the Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership.
During two hours of checks in Oxford’s Botley Road yesterday, above, police caught 26 people driving without seatbelts and seven using a mobile phone while at the wheel.
One of the drivers using a phone turned out to be an illegal immigrant from Asia. He is now the subject of an investigation by officers from the UK Border Agency.
Of the two motorists whose vehicles were seized, one was driving without a licence and the other without insurance.
The operation was one of the last to be carried out by the partnership after the county council voted to end its £600,000 funding for the organisation, which will now concentrate on road safety in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.
However, officials have insisted the spending cuts will not lead to less enforcement of traffic laws. Partnership spokesman Craig McAlpine said: “The level of enforcement and education carried out by the roads policing department and other police officers in Oxfordshire will not change as a consequence of this decision by the county council.
“This decision affects the speed cameras in the county, not the enforcement the police carry out, however enforcement will not be co-ordinated through the partnership and the county council in the future.”
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