THE mother of a motorcyclist killed during a high-speed police chase in Golders Green says new pursuit guidelines do not go far enough.

The regulations, proposed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), aim to reduce the number of people who are injured and killed in police pursuits.

The number of people who died as a result of police chases rose by 67 per cent from 2007-8 to 2008-9.

Last year 40 people died in 33 incidents, up from 24 people in 18 incidents in 2007-8.

In its latest report, released last Thursday, the IPCC said motorcycle pursuits should only be permitted in "exceptional circumstances", such as where serious criminality is involved.

The guidelines also give local police control rooms more power to decide if a vehicle pursuit should take place, and say risk assessments should be undertaken where possible.

The rules are already outlined in the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) guidelines, but each of the 43 police forces in England and Wales can choose to disregard them.

The IPCC now plans to make the regulations mandatory by codifying them in law.

But Kim Williams, the mother of 24-year-old motorcyclist Lexy Williams, says the rules are not only inconsistent, but inadequate.

Mr Williams was killed on the North Circular Road on January 22, 2007, after officers chased him at speeds of up to 124mph when he refused to stop.

Though police suspected the bike may have been stolen because its plates looked too new, they had no evidence he had committed any crime.

Mr Williams' inquest, held from March 17 to 28 this year, heard that a catalogue of errors resulting from inadequate training guidelines and poor judgement contributed to the crash.

Mrs Williams, 48, from High Road, said: "The IPCC is right that you need consistency between police forces, but these rules could go a lot further.

"What came out in Lexy's inquest was a basic lack of information about the seriousness of injuries resulting from motorcyle accidents. Officers should be better trained in this respect.

"They should also inform the control room of their speed at all times, which they don't have to do at present, and there should be a top speed of around 80 to 90mph - though obviously this may have to be flexible in very serious cases.

"There should be an air support unit present for every chase, and police should be trained to call the air ambulance at the scene of any serious accident."

Mrs Williams hopes to convince the police force to adopt a "Lexy's Law" to enforce these more stringent guidelines, and believes her son would still be alive should they have been in place two years ago.

In his verdict at Mr Williams' inquest, Coroner Andrew Walker said police should have waited for air support before launching the pursuit and better communicated the severity of the motorcyclist's injuries.

Concluding, he said: "What comes out of this inquest is that the regulations are complex, contradictory and unworkable, and must be discarded in favour of a new version that sets out a threshold test."

IPCC Commissioner David Petch said: "In July 2007, we recommended that all pursuits should be limited to instances where a serious crime has been committed and that ACPO should seek to define this more clearly in future revisions to the pursuit guidelines.

"We continue to call for this area to be more tightly regulated."

ACPO lead on police pursuits, assistant chief constable Andy Holt, said: “The IPCC has recognised the work that ACPO has done around producing guidelines for police pursuits and will be using our work as the basis for all their investigations in the future.

"This step will also assist ACPO in its work with other road policing organisations to ensure that its current guidelines are changed into statutory codes of practice.”