TELLING someone their loved one has died in a road related incident is one of the most difficult tasks for a police officer.

This time of year can be particularly fraught, with people taking risks when it comes to drink or drug driving, their general speed and taking chances on the condition of their vehicles in the winter months.

To try and reduce the risk of carnage on our roads, North Wales Police has dedicated officers out in Wrexham and Flintshire every day, keeping a check on the safety of motorists and their vehicles.

Leader reporter Rory Sheehan and photographer Craig Colville spent the morning with PC Emma Birrell and PC Darren Newby, of North Wales Police’s Road’s Policing Unit (RPU) to see the work they do in action...

After leaving the new police HQ in Llay, the officers parked up their marked cars - fitted with audio and video recording devices - in the lay-by outside Coleg Cambria’s Connah’s Quay campus.

Both officers stopped drivers at random to check the condition of their vehicles and to ask them to undergo a breathalyser test to see if they were under the legal limit, which is 35 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath.

All politely agreed to be tested and no-one was found to be over the limit.

PC Newby said that in the last 18 months, he alone had arrested 56 drivers found to be over the limit,

One of the drivers stopped in Connah’s Quay, Jeff Lawless, said his daughter was struck by a drink-driver three years ago and he fully endorsed officers making checks.

He said: “She recovered but I agree with it and fully support what these officers are doing.”

One driver was spoken to about the condition of their tyres, and another about being unable to see through his windscreen due to condensation.

PC Birrell, who joined the unit at the start of this year, having become a response officer in 2013, said: “I enjoy the driving, the freedom of being able to go wherever I want in Flintshire and Wrexham unless there is an incident.

“Lately there have been a lot of burglaries to help with, involving the theft of high performance cars.

“Recently there was a high value Mercedes stolen in Llay and we recovered the vehicle within 20 minutes.

“The work we do can range from dealing with road traffic collisions (RTC), to being present at big events such as the Coca-Cola truck being in Queensferry.

“A typical day will see us get to the station for the start of the shift, ensure the car is calibrated, then see what we can help with.

“We are led by what comes in really. There could be an RTC in the A55 in St Asaph and we may be required to help with that.”

PC Birrell added that some weeks are tougher than others.

“You get weeks where it’s just carnage,” she said.

“It was a bad summer for us as there were quite a lot of fatal collisions this year, which has been quite demanding and takes its toll.

“There have also been a lot of burglaries this year, quite a lot of drink or drug drivers but in the west you get more RTCs because of the type of roads.

“When the weather is really bad, with snow and ice, people don’t tend to make sure their vehicles are winter worthy and sometimes it is just pure luck that they are not involved in any collisions. The same goes for those driving without lights.

“Some people also don’t realise the effects wear and tear has on a car, that even if you had an MOT and service 10 months ago, if you’ve driven 20,000 miles since then it is not going to be covered.”

While no day is ever the same for a roads policing officer, the same offences do crop up with alarming frequency.

PC Birrell said: “We look out in general for vehicles in poor condition, but it’s crazy how many people still use their phones when driving, or don’t wear seatbelts. It’s something to save your life.

“A lot of people deny they were using their phone when you pull them over even if you have the evidence, or say something like ‘I was just phoning the doctor’ or ‘I’m phoning the school to pick my kids up because they’re sick’.

“What they may think of as an emergency can become a life or death situation for someone else, when something that could wait a few minutes by driving safely causes an incident. Just stop.”

PC Birrell added that motorbikes and mopeds were also subject to checks, and whether riders wear protective clothing.

She said: “It only takes two seconds for contact with the road and skin to be scraped back to the bone.”

Part of the morning was spent in the Caia Park area of Wrexham, where PC Birrell spotted a vehicle driving in the opposite direction carrying a passenger not wearing a seatbelt.

A quick manoeuvre, lights and a signal, and the officer had pulled the vehicle over and spoken to those inside.

“People don’t realise their lights have gone or they have vehicle defects, so we give them 14 days to get their vehicle into a legal state,” she said.

“It really hits home when you go to a crash or a fatality which could have been avoided.”