As the Police force in this country continue to decline in real numbers it seems that non Police cars are starting to grow. I am of course reffering to the very large vary shiny and very new 4 by 4s that the highways agency have been given to replace er I mean assist the Police on the M25 and other motorways.
The real give away that they are not police cars is the black and yellow stripes rather than blue and yellow. However from a distance of anything over 100 meters everyone slams the anchors on and addopts the safe driving bubble of 69.9 mph as seen around police cars on the motorway.
And your point is??
What legal powers do they have?
Can they zap you for speeding?
Can they force you to stop?
Bring back real Police in real Police cars
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The responsibility of the Highways Traffic Officers are listed below. They are there to assist with:
Motor vehicle accidents
Removing damaged and abandoned vehicles
Clearing debris on carriageways
Undertaking high visibility patrols
Providing mobile/temporary road closures
Supporting police in their duties
They have no legal or police power and cannot charge you.
Clearly they have contact with the police as part of their job so I could imagine them reporting a speeding/suspicous vehicle.
I must admit they all drive about like 'jobsworths' but having the extra presence is comforting for some - but as you say if you go to all this trouble why not pay a few quid more and do the job properly with real police officers.
Hope that helps.
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I think real police would cost a lot more than "a few quid more". I came thru Harwich last week and thought that our frontiers would be secured by uniformed staff from the Customs and Immigration Service or Frontier Force or whatever their title is this month. Not a bit of it, the whole operation was conducted by a group of people in hi viz jackets with "Armour Secutity" or some such on the back. My guess is that these poor souls will be on minimum wage +25p per hour, no job security and no pension scheme ie WAY cheaper than a civil servant!
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Um.. if you can't tell the difference between black and yellow livery with orange lights on top and blue and yellow battenburg with blue lights on top, you probably should have gone to Specsavers! ;)
Imho, the Highways Agency people do a great job, and it's comforting to have them there if you break down in a precarious place or there's something (e.g. a piece of metal) in one of the lanes that needs removing. They're there to keep traffic moving smoothly, and the fact that they're sitting with broken down people, escorting lorries and picking up debris means that a highly trained, expensive police officer doesn't need to be there and can concentrate on crime.
These patrols have been discussed here many times since they first arrived on the midlands motorways a couple of years ago, but why go out of your way to criticise them when they're there to help keep things moving? I just wish they'd add 'shunting people out of the middle lane' to their job description!
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>>the fact that they're sitting with broken down people>>
More on the lines of vehicles hopefully...:-)
Or is it the stress of modern day motoring?
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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Reminds me of that wonderful set of statistics I saw years ago with people "broken down by age and sex"....
Seriously, I agree that it's good to have this extra resource, and there have been stories recently of extreme helpfulness. They are certainly no threat.
Presumably it's a matter of luck as to whether one comes along, or do they get notified when someone makes a call from the hard shoulder (via emergency phone or their mobile)? Anyone know?
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From the side they're black and yellow but the back of the 4x4 is orange/yellow stripes, similar to a police car. The only give away is the small "Higways Agency" lettering at the bottom of the door. From 100m away its not easy to tell so most people play it safe. They've also taken to parking up on the "Police Car only" humps on on the M4, evidently in position should they be required. Unfortuntely, many drivers assume this is a police radar trap and hits the anchors accordingly...
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They've taken to parking on the police car humps on the M180 and M18 too, again with same effect of people hitting the anchors, particularly as the M180 humps tend to be on bends surrounded by lots of foilage.....
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I think real police would cost a lot more than "a few quid more". I came thru Harwich last week and thought that our frontiers would be secured by uniformed staff from the Customs and Immigration Service or Frontier Force or whatever their title is this month. Not a bit of it, the whole operation was conducted by a group of people in hi viz jackets with "Armour Secutity" or some such on the back. My guess is that these poor souls will be on minimum wage +25p per hour, no job security and no pension scheme ie WAY cheaper than a civil servant!
Too right. A year or so back my sister-in-law (no quals or training) got a job working in a private prison. No training given, poor pay, and put in sole charge of some pretty unpleasant characters on day 2 of the job. She walked out after a couple of weeks.....
There seems to be a general trend of undermining any kind of professional job; e.g. CSO's instead of police, 'learning support assistants' instead of teachers, nurses getting prescribing powers of doctors etc etc
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There seems to be a general trend of undermining any kind of professional job; e.g. CSO's instead of police, 'learning support assistants' instead of teachers, nurses getting prescribing powers of doctors etc etc
don't want to deviate too far, but my son had a full time Learning Support Assistant allocaed to him when he was in mainstream school and that was "as well as" as opposed to "instead of".
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don't want to deviate too far, but my son had a full time Learning Support Assistant allocaed to him when he was in mainstream school and that was "as well as" as opposed to "instead of".
Yes, that's how it used to be. I think the law changed last Sept to allow LSA's to actually take the class. My youngest daughter was being 'taught' for about one day a week by a totally unqualified LSA (I knew the woman concerned). I'm a governor at the school and played up about it, along with one or two others, and things changed back to how they should be.
Its all about saving money - teachers or coppers, its all the same. My mates lad was studying engineering at a university - they couldn't afford enought lecturers so a lot of his tutorials were delivered by a Chinese PhD student with a very elementary grasp of English! He wasn't happy!
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I must admit they all drive about like 'jobsworths'.....
Of course they do, how dare they patrol at 50mph, how dare their vehicles bear slight resemblence to police cars causing inconvenience to ignorant speeding motorists who can't tell the difference, how dare they help stranded motorists and remove dangerous debris from the carriageway..............
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Howeverfrom a distance of anything over 100 meters everyone slams the anchors on and addopts the safe driving bubble of 69.9 mph as seen around police cars on the motorway.
>>>> GAS or ELECTRICITY meters?
VBR.......................MD.
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Whether they are police or cut-rate substitutes, do they really need all this expensive kit? When in London and the rural UK last summer I was amazed to see the police (if it was them) using big flash BMWs, Mercedes, Volvos, Jaguars, etc, etc. In France they seem to manage with Megane estates or Renault minibuses and in Spain and Portugal they seem to get by with a collection of nondescript motors - including the odd Discovery in mountain areas I notice - and still get their jobs done.
Wouldn't the money be better spent on more officers rather than top-of-the-range motors?
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They need 4x4 vehicles to tow stranded artics and other vehicles clear of the carriageway. Also if struck on the motorway whilst parked the crew is offered slightly more protection than a saloon car or van. Top of the range doesn't really come into it, capability is the name of the game, try dragging an artic with a Volvo estate and see how long your clutch lasts.
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I can see the point in why they need powerful 4x4's however surely there are cheaper options than the range rovers they often drive? Some of them are in shoguns which would be significantly cheaper than a range rover.
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I very much doubt that those Toyota 4x4's they have would be capable of moving a 30 ton artic would they?!
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I very much doubt that those Toyota 4x4's they have would be capable of moving a 30 ton artic would they?!
Why not? The Rangies/Landcruisers/Shoguns/Discos would all probably be able to drag a 40 tonne artic a short distance on to the hard shoulder. They certainly wouldn't be able to tow one but that's a different matter.
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I understand that I have a legal duty to 'follow their instructions' but I fail to understand exactly what this means.
If they signal me to pull over and stop for example do I have to do so?
Can anyone advise what is the actual limit of their powers?
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