I thought traffic officers (not the real police) were supposed to help with clearing incidents/holdups etc . . . . .
M 40 last night. I was northbound, one accident just north of Marlow - 2 mile queue. In the queue was sat a highways Agency 4x4 patiently waiting with everyone else. Only a 2 mile queue because . . . . .
Just a few miles up the road was another southbound accident - 5 mile queue this time.
So what were the highways officers doing?
Suggestions . . . . . (btw: I haven't a clue what they were doing).
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Possibly end of shift, so on their way back to base?
When people argue that speed cameras have been used to allow a reduction in the numbers of traffic police, they overlook the fact that these patrols have been introduced also .
The general idea is that they relieve police of logistic jobs so they can concentrate on offence prevention/enforcement. In practice it isn't always possible to keep to those distinctions.
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They can only attend incidents they are assigned to or they stumble across. If they were not assigned, they could assume that another team might have been assigned or The police might have been in attendance? or it could just be shear weight of traffic. They may have funny lights, but they cant see through 2 miles of traffic.
the annoying thing is they cant nick the pink fluffy dice who decide that the hard shoulder is a personal lane in the event of holdups.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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>>>the annoying thing is they cant nick the pink fluffy dice who decide that the hard shoulder is a personal lane in the event of holdups.<<<
They can't!, yet a council appointed litter warden can dish out a fixed penalty fine for dropping a cigarette end!! crazy!!.
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>>>the annoying thing is they cant nick the pink fluffy dice who decide that the hard shoulder is a personal lane in the event of holdups.<<< They can't!
They can't nick them but they can stop on the hard shoulder and block it just before a slip road, and have a "chat" with offending drivers (and looked like they were taking reg. numbers to pass on to police?). It appeared the lane 1 drivers were quite reluctant to let these people back in!
I saw this being done on the M1 just after the Traffic Officers first became operational, but not seen it again on any recent hold ups.
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I was in a two mile queue on the M5 north on Saturday - reason was rubbernecking at two cars had been in a slight bump southbound, both on hard shoulder, recovery vehicle in attendance. There was no queue on the southbound carriageway!
As TVM says Highways Agency can't simply nip onto the hard shoulder to see what the queue is about, they have to be assigned and in my case there was nothing on our carriageway to be assigned to - they can't solve rubbernecking.
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What really surprised me last night was that there were three accidents (closing at least one lane) and a (really well ablaze) people mover fire all southbound.
No northbound hold ups at any of them (one or two did brake!)
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