The police in North Rhine-Westphalia look after around 2,200 km of freeways and motorway-like federal highways. This also includes a large number of rest areas and service stations.
Regional responsibility for this extensive road network, in which the police maintain numerous freeway police stations, lies with the police authorities in Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Münster and Bielefeld, which each maintain their own "freeway police" traffic inspectorate in the traffic directorates.
The main focus of police work is traffic monitoring, particularly with regard to distraction caused by smartphones, excessive speed (speeders), insufficient distance (tailgaters) and load safety.
The patrol service on the highway is on duty around the clock. In addition to recording traffic accidents and securing and removing hazardous areas, its tasks also include traffic monitoring and the prosecution of criminal offenses and misdemeanors.
For technical inspections, in particular of trucks, buses and hazardous goods transports, the freeway police maintain traffic services in which specially trained police officers also monitor driving and rest times as well as load securing. They have state-of-the-art radar and video technology for traffic monitoring.
The traffic service is also always in demand when joint traffic checks are carried out with other authorities such as the Federal Office for Road Haulage, the immigration or employment offices, the veterinary or road traffic offices, etc.
The civilian task forces focus on combating criminal offenses. The police officers, most of whom are civilian, investigate and search mainly in the areas of property crimes (especially motor vehicles), violations of the Narcotics Act (import smuggling) and violations of immigration law (illegal entry and residence). However, they are also deployed to combat traffic offenses.