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Police road obstruction


Nick Jones

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Two times in recent weeks I've been in long traffic queues caused mostly by unfathomable (to me) police behaviour.

A few weeks back on A303; long, long tailbacks on a dual carriageway section of the A303 proved to be caused by a police patrol car parked in the slow lane "protecting" :huh: a car with a puncture that was actually in a laybye and not even being worked on at the time of passing - presumably awaiting the AA.  Pointless waste of many peoples time and patience.

Then, this morning, a long tailback on the two lane A37 south of Yeovil caused by........ yes, a parked police car "guarding" an over-turned car that was so far through the hedge it was more or less in the field.  No occupant, not on, or even very near the carriageway and no debris in the road apart from a police patrol car, which could easily have been stored in a laybye 75m up the road if the wreck really needed guarding.  Ok, will need recovery, but why waste people time blocking one lane until recovery truck arrives.  It's just mad....... don't these f-wits have any common sense?

And it makes I very grumpy...... :mad:

As for the air ambulance near Wincanton story from earlier in the year...... can't remember if I bored you with that one already, but also not a shining example of smart traffic handling.....

Nick

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Not so much a long traffic queue story but I was in the  GT6 coming home yesterday at 3 pm and drove the entire M3 section from 2-4A (the new smart motorway bit) at 50MPH due to apparently "pedestrians in the road"

Well I never saw them, and I am not unconvinced it wasn't a case of set the speed limit to 50 and collect a few fines.

I just dont get this current trend of minor bumper benders where the entire world's emergency services descend on the situation, close virtually the whole road and cause mayhem for the surrounding 20 miles.

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TRAFFIC OFFICERS 

what are they all about. That don’t / can’t actually help a motorist. 

They can’t change a wheel etc. 

They are very good at sitting  behind hardshoulder cars protecting them. 

Then there are the motorists that dont don’t drive past them as they think they are coppers or actually have speed enforcement powers. 

( they’ll have rose powers soon tho !!)

grrrrr

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Re: warnings on those screens above Mways.    I was on the M25 south, westbound this summer, coimng back from Brands.    The 'smart' speed limit dropped, and again, and the sign said "Vehicles in road".   Eh?!?     And then I saw it.    A Eurohatch, stopped in the outside lane.  No one in it, no one on the hard shoulder, no damage. no other cars, and no 'guard' car. Complete mystery.

But then I thought, this isn't drivers who can't think, it's villains who have given it legs as they say.    Could it be that the official cars as above, Police or Traffic Officers, were in fact guarding a crime scene, waiting for Forensics?

It happens.     Again on an Mway, this time the M6 northbound between Preston and Lancaster.     It's mainly straight, you can see well ahead and it was nearly deserted on a Sunday evening.    I noticed vehicles stopped on the opposite hard shoulder, flashing lights,  people standing about.     An accident?   But as I passed - amazement!    They were police officers,  POINTING GUNS AT THE CENTRAL VEHICLE!   

I did not stay to discover if I could give assistance.     But neither  could I find out what had happened.    In this connected age, you might expect such a dramatic event to be reported, and there was nothing, on the 'Net, local or national news reports.   Which brings me to the other explanation for 'guard' police at an isolated car stopped on the Mway.    I could explain it to you, but then I'd have to kill you.     'Nuff said?

JOhn

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On one of our UK trips think we were in Cornwall we came back late from somewhere or other and missed a turn.

Traffic was pretty light so instead of going up the long hill I did a “uey”  using the dirt verge on the opposite side to complete the turn.

When I got bogged in the dirt I twigged it was a gravel trap, designed for (I guess) truck brake failures on the downhill run.

First a very nice young lady stopped to see if she could help, then a police car came past on the opposite side, went up the hill to the roundabout at the top, and came back and spent the best part of an hour helping me get back on to the road.

I pleaded with them to accept a few quid to have a well earned English Ale when they finished their shift but they flatly refused and said it was just part of their job.

 

With the incidents that Nick mentions I suspect experience has taught them that unless they set up near the stopped car some clown finds a way of ploughing into it.

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Individual officers are (mostly) fine. Policy however, is difficult for my little monkey brain to understand.  Suspect the involvement of 'elf n safety to an OCD degree, concentrating on one narrow area and utterly failing to consider the potential "collateral damage".  Another manifestation of this is the frequent failure to provide any means of escape for traffic trapped between junctions after motorway closure due to accidents with hundreds of people being stuck for hours and hours unnecessarily.

The Wincanton incident I alluded to earlier was encountered on a Sunday afternoon head home from a Gurston Down hillclimb meeting earlier this year.  I joined the A303 just east of Wincanton, heading west.  It's a dual carriageway at that point and I noticed that there was no traffic coming east.  Just as I approached the Wincanton exit traffic slowed suddenly, then stopped.  Loads of blue flashing lights on the eastbound side - full emergency services party going on and lots of bikers parked on the hard shoulder.  Uh oh.....  But why is the west bound side shut?  Standing on my seat (open top car see) I can see a police car and some cones, but the road is clear beyond.  After about 20 minutes the air ambulance lands - on the west bound carriageway - although the east bound is already closed by the accident.......  They then start to allow west-bound traffic off at the junction.  My first thought was having got off one side of the junction we'd then be invited to return via the on-ramp on the other side (which involves a slightly unusual doubling back manoeuvre in this case - but perfectly possible) which would take traffic back onto the carriageway well clear of the still landed helicopter.  But no, the implication from the zombie officer stood there is that we have to leave completely and go and play with the eastbound traffic in the town of Wincanton - which is only borderline suitable for motorised vehicles at the best of times.  I ring the management to ask her not to give my dinner to the Dog....  Then, queuing on the bridge I have a "fuck this" moment and pull a U-turn, go back down the slip road to the point where the on/off legs split and rejoin the empty west bound carriageway passing the zombie officer at a very moderate speed and giving him ample time to object - he doesn't.  All the other car occupants are watching me (in my head anyway!), think "what is that idiot doing?"  However, having got past the officer, I know it's not me that is the idiot!  Dunno if anyone else cottoned on and followed.  They didn't catch me if they did, but then as I touched the rev limiter in every gear up to 4th (don't think it'll do it in 5th as would be about 140!) regaining "cruising speed", they'd have had to have been going quite hard.  Had the road to myself for 8 miles.  The other carriageway was solid stationary traffic for the most of that distance.

So:
Why close the westbound carriageway completely to land a helicopter when the eastbound is already closed? (I could understand a short-term closure while the helicopter landed on the eastbound)

Why direct westbound traffic into the town when there was a perfectly decent route back onto the main road?  Or was zombie officer misunderstanding his instructions......

Incidently, the accident involved two motorbikes only.  One rider was quite badly hurt but was expected to make a full recovery last I checked.  The road was shut for a further 8 hours for "accident investigation" work..........  Wincanton was a war zone all evening.  Cost a lot of people a lot of time - a lot of it completely unnecessary.

Nick

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Surely this is the legally correct way to do things?  All traffic stopped then nothing can happen, micro-manage a scene and that takes manpower but also carries the risk of further accidents or incidents due to other drivers being distracted by the helicopter or flying debris, or gawpers whatever. From both a H&S and legal point of view what can go wrong with a total shutdown? Every other possibility available allows for complications and legal liability, and the great public are not averse to suing when there is a possibility of compensation.

 

So all emergency services develop a series of responses to various types of incidents, and implement these.  Over time these have issues and are refined in the light of experience.  But they can never be 100% appropriate in every case, so mostly are “over the top”. Either that or every member of staff has to be trained in absolutely everything because once you give discretionary powers to your employees then you also pass on to  them the gift of liability.  

 

Alan

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20 minutes ago, AB|W said:

Surely this is the legally correct way to do things?  All traffic stopped then nothing can happen, micro-manage a scene and that takes manpower but also carries the risk of further accidents or incidents due to other drivers being distracted by the helicopter or flying debris, or gawpers whatever. From both a H&S and legal point of view what can go wrong with a total shutdown? Every other possibility available allows for complications and legal liability, and the great public are not averse to suing when there is a possibility of compensation.

 

 

 

So all emergency services develop a series of responses to various types of incidents, and implement these.  Over time these have issues and are refined in the light of experience.  But they can never be 100% appropriate in every case, so mostly are “over the top”. Either that or every member of staff has to be trained in absolutely everything because once you give discretionary powers to your employees then you also pass on to  them the gift of liability.  

 

 

 

Alan

 

I was in a big shunt on an autobahn in Germany about a decade ago. Two Golf GTIs racing each other got it wrong while cutting through the traffic and met in a big off.

everyone screeches to a halt....two totalled Gols on the carriageway.

then it got all astonishing for an Brit.... in the UK, that would have been a total motorway shut down - all day chaos, hours of jams

First thing that happened was all the cars pulled over to the Armco and hard shoulder leaving the road completely clear.

up comes the police, ambulance, fire brigade

Cuts the two clowns out and while they are doing this, up comes a couple of ADAC air ambulances who land on the other side of the wreck and ADAC recovery trucks.

Off go the choppers, scene photographed, out comes the recovery guys, wrecks removed, road swept.

and while all this was going on, the police interviewed witnesses, kept us fully informed of what’s happening and how much longer they expected to be.

we were back on our way in a couple of hours.

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I think that getting onto the hard shoulder to leave the carriageway for emergency services, is a legal requirement in Germany and elsewhere.   In the UK, we took the opposite policy, leave the hard shoulder free for the ES, unless you are broken down.     

I fear that the congestion of most UK Mways would make the first impractical, at best leaving a single lane on the outside.      As long as nutters don't try to use the HS as a lane, it should get the ES where they need to be.

John

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10 minutes ago, JohnD said:

I fear that the congestion of most UK Mways would make the first impractical, at best leaving a single lane on the outside.      As long as nutters don't try to use the HS as a lane, it should get the ES where they need to be.

John

Happens EVERY time there's an issue on the M606 and most of the times there's an issue on the M62. People start using the HS as soon as there's a queue to jump in at the front, then that just grinds to a halt after about 10/15 minutes. Almost an everyday occurrence round here. And it's an odd week when I don't see somebody in Bradford drive blatantly through a red light. or up the wrong side of the road to cut in at the front of a queue. They even do it at the junction outside the police HQ

C'est la vie.

Sam

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Yes but the one joy of queue jumpers is when you get to send them the wrong way. I was on the M3 to M25 junction, in the left lane which was real busy to go clockwise. Some muppet tried to run in the anticlockwise lane and cut in at the last second. Judicious use of my company owned car holding my line and speed forced him back into "his own lane" and sent him off the wrong way round the M25. Yes it was petty, and puerile. But it wasn't dangerous and it made me laugh for several minutes.

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That is a good one...... could have have cost him a good hour at the wrong time of day!

I remember an incident a good number of years involving a long queue where two carriageways merged into one for road works with a long angled line of cones.  Those of us in the left lane had been there a while, rolling along at walking pace, with not few chancers coming up the right side to push in.  Finally, as I was getting to the point where there really was only one lane some "gent" in a posh German car came up the right side at some speed (supremely arrogant as the queue was really quite long) intending to push in and everyone, myself included, decided that he wasn't coming in......... so he was forced to go through the cones, braking hard.  He then tried to butt in again but was hampered by
- the reflection of his very red face in the windscreen,
- a total absence of mercy of those in the left lane who were very much enjoying his discomfiture 
- having to come through the cones again
- the realisation that he had two cones stuck under his car.......:biggrin:

Nick

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Is it me or do people - car and trucks not get it when you line up on the outside with another driver when approaching cones  and go at their slower speed thus preventing the queue jumpers from passing.

then create the gap to let you in at the cones  

 

it used to happen a lot  typically 2 hgv s

but still anyone did it.

 

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