Romanian officers visit North Wales

Four new faces have been on patrol around Anglesey and Gwynedd this week, to help promote greater exchange of road safety.

Police officers from Romania have been out and about with officers from the Western Roads Policing Unit, arranged as part of an exchange visit by TISPOL’s (European Traffic Police Network) Project Lifesaver.

Project Lifesaver was launched in 2008 to promote greater exchange of road safety and enforcement practices to reduce road deaths in Europe. The project focuses on six TISPOL member countries, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain, to support and encourage their road traffic enforcement activities.

The aim of Lifesaver is the sharing of information and knowledge which includes seminars at the strategic, middle management and operational levels, with benefits for all TISPOL member countries. A key part of the project is also the exchange of officers from the six countries to other TISPOL member countries such as the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and Norway.

The four officers – who work around the Bucharest area, have spent the last three days shadowing PC Rob Owen and PC Roger Brazel who works in the Roads Policing Unit based in Llandygai.

Over the past four days they have spent their time looking at issues such as speed enforcement and seatbelt offences and have also spent time today at Dalar Hir, the VOSA weighbridge on the A55 on Anglesey where they have been looking at lorries brought in to be checked for tacograph offences.

Anghel Rareş has been a traffic officer with the Romanian Police for 10 years. He said: “This has been my first visit to North Wales. It has been very good experience to be able to see how different roads policing is over here compared to Romania.

“It’s also been interesting to see the investment that’s been made with the police vehicles and modern technology. We have seen lots of interesting things and have learnt so much.”

The four will return to Romania today (Friday).

PC Rob Owen said: “It’s been a pleasure to host this visit and I’m pleased the officers have found their time with us interesting. This is an excellent example of best practice of how European nations are working together to help improve road safety.

“This is the first time that Romanian officers have been to North Wales and we are proud to be part of this project. Casualty reduction and improving road safety is a European-wide priority and we look forward to working with TISPOL again in the near future.”

Further information regarding TISPOL can be obtained via their website – www.tispol.org

Photograph: (from left to right): Pîneariu Làcràmioara, Jipesou Sorin, Valentin Pănescu and Anghel Rareş