Most people have been involved in minor car accidents at some point in their lives, with only the very fortunate not suffering prangs or dents to their vehicles.

Sadly, it seems that Scottish Police forces are no exception.

Journalists at Deadlinenews.co.uk have recently revealed that since 2009, officers have spent nearly £250,000 repairing damage to their own vehicles – with 764 reported accidents happening in their own car parks.

According to a freedom of information enquiry, officers have also crashed their vehicles into fuel pumps, other police cars, gateposts and skips.

Some instances of damage were caused by staff forgetting to apply their handbrake and other officers blamed their mistakes on their feet slipping from the clutch.

Les Grey, chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, said that officers who crash their cars will be held responsible.

“This is unacceptable and many of the accidents are due to carelessness,” he said.

“It’s not just a case of officers shrugging their shoulders and getting on with their day, they will be held accountable and have to fill in reams of paperwork to explain themselves.”

Last year, it was also revealed that the force had wasted nearly £80,000 of taxpayer’s money by putting the wrong kind of fuel in their vehicles, leading to 350 police cars being taken off the road.

Labels: car accident, repairing damage, vehicle