‘Why aren’t you using Bluetooth?!’ Officer understanding of the dangers of handheld and handsfree mobile phone-use by drivers (2024)
Journal Article
Briggs, G., Savigar-Shaw, L., & Wells, H. (in press). ‘Why aren’t you using Bluetooth?!’ Officer understanding of the dangers of handheld and handsfree mobile phone-use by drivers. Police Journal: Theory, Practice and Principles, https://doi.org/10.1177/0032258x241309187

Phone-use by drivers contributes to increasing numbers of collisions and deaths worldwide. Despite clear evidence for the equal dangers of handsfree phone-use, most jurisdictions only prohibit handheld use. This mixed-methods study provides an in-dep... Read More about ‘Why aren’t you using Bluetooth?!’ Officer understanding of the dangers of handheld and handsfree mobile phone-use by drivers.

Scrutinising the appeal of volunteer Community Speedwatch to policing leaders in England and Wales: Resources, Responsivity and Responsibilisation (2019)
Journal Article
Wells, H., & Millings, M. (2019). Scrutinising the appeal of volunteer Community Speedwatch to policing leaders in England and Wales: Resources, Responsivity and Responsibilisation. Policing and Society, 376-391. https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2018.1515945

This article focuses on ‘Community Speedwatch’ (CSW) - a particular volunteering approach that has apparently attracted the attention of senior police decision-makers in England and Wales over recent years. It considers the significance of decisions... Read More about Scrutinising the appeal of volunteer Community Speedwatch to policing leaders in England and Wales: Resources, Responsivity and Responsibilisation.

Keeping up, and keeping on: Risk, acceleration and the law-abiding driving offender (2017)
Journal Article
Wells, H., & Savigar, L. (2019). Keeping up, and keeping on: Risk, acceleration and the law-abiding driving offender. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 19(2), 254-270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1748895817738555

Roads policing is the most likely generator of an adverse-outcome encounter between the general public and the police and is therefore one of the most likely situations in which individuals are confronted with their own ‘law-abidingness’, or lack of... Read More about Keeping up, and keeping on: Risk, acceleration and the law-abiding driving offender.

The Angered Versus the Endangered: PCCs, Roads Policing and the Challenges of Assessing and Representing ‘Public Opinion’ (2016)
Journal Article
Wells. (2016). The Angered Versus the Endangered: PCCs, Roads Policing and the Challenges of Assessing and Representing ‘Public Opinion’. British Journal of Criminology, 95-113. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw079

Part of the rationale for introducing elected Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) was a suggestion that the police and public needed to be ‘reconnected’, with the public more readily able to shape the type of policing they wished to receive. Appare... Read More about The Angered Versus the Endangered: PCCs, Roads Policing and the Challenges of Assessing and Representing ‘Public Opinion’.

PCCs, roads policing and the dilemmas of increased democratic accountability (2015)
Journal Article
Wells. (2015). PCCs, roads policing and the dilemmas of increased democratic accountability. The British Journal of Criminology: An International Review of Crime and Society, 274-292. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azv037

In the era of the Police and Crime Commissioner, when the benefits of democratic accountability are placed centre stage, and the public are encouraged to believe that they should dictate the type of policing they receive, this article considers the p... Read More about PCCs, roads policing and the dilemmas of increased democratic accountability.