Drivers will hoon if police cut | report

The University of Adelaide report also has the view traffic police numbers can be cut from the current level of 150 without negative effects on road safety is "risky".

The report, commissioned by the Police Association of SA, also states South Australia's Police preferred option in its review of traffic policing - to establish a Road Safety Policing Unit within the Operations Support Service - cannot be sustained because there is insufficient evidence it is the most efficient of the three options canvassed.

The claims, in the report by the Australian Workplace Innovation and Social Research Centre, will heighten debate between the police union and SAPOL, with PASA already expressing concerns at the potential impact on road safety under the move.

The push is part of a wider organisational review Police Commissioner Gary Burns has initiated, which includes plans to close up to six shopfront and smaller police stations and increase online crime reporting.

There are currently 150 dedicated traffic police spread across six Local Service Areas. If the preferred option in the SAPOL review is adopted, this number could be cut by up to half.

Road safety might be everyone's responsibility, but it isn't everyone's priority

PASA president Mark Carroll said the report confirmed the union's view any cut to traffic police numbers would "potentially jeopardise community safety and recent improvements in road safety behaviours".

"Those cut will be shifted to general patrols. Road safety might be everyone's responsibility, but it isn't everyone's priority," he said.

"We are also concerned SAPOL's review conclusions are not supported by the data used to reach them. This raises questions on the veracity of the proposals it contains." A police spokeswoman said police 'have no intention of rolling back our commitment" to road safety and that "traffic policing now transcends Local Service Area boundaries".

"To continue to positively impact on road safety, new models of traffic policing need to be considered that focus on a more holistic, centrally managed approach," she said.

The report expresses concern at the view that improvements in driver behaviour in recent years "are somehow locked in" and that the level of traffic policing can be reduced "without a reversion to earlier types of behaviour." 

"It is our view that the belief that the level of police presence can be wound back without negative consequences for road safety outcomes is risky," it states. "A reversal of behaviours is likely to be slow and perhaps invisible at first but then will become more obvious and, once established, be difficult and expensive to reverse."