"Pedestrians in the road" on the motorway, does anyone care?
Discussion
Gafferjim said:
999 via a mobile: You need to be sure of the location, including direction, and motorway, you need to be sure just what you've seen. when you get through to the mobile operator (who could be anywhere in the country, or even out of the country) they will put you through to the service for the area they think that you're in (nearest mobile mast) this is not always correct and it could be near force boundaries. Once you get through to say the police operator, they will take the details that you give - full stop- a large percentage of 999 call takers are not motorway knowledgeable, so may not know that they've missed important information that they could have asked you. They produce a police log with the information that you give, this is then electronically sent to the police motorway desk, they in turn electronically send it to the HA control room, we then will immediately set signals to the information passed if required. We then start to look through the CCTV cameras to see if wee can see the incident from the location description, meanwhile any other emergency service that might be required will be called (hot-key direct lines) unless the police have noted on the log that they've already done it.
I was told 112 was better from a Mobile as it allowed location data, this may have been BS but was from a StJohn's abulance guy at some first aid training.wikipedia said:
E112
E112 is a location-enhanced version of 112. The telecom operator transmits the location information to the emergency centre. The EU Directive E112 (2003) requires mobile phone networks to provide emergency services with whatever information they have about the location a mobile call was made. This directive is based on the FCC's Enhanced 911 ruling in 2001.
The new eCall project for automated emergency calls from cars is based on E1000.
E112 is a location-enhanced version of 112. The telecom operator transmits the location information to the emergency centre. The EU Directive E112 (2003) requires mobile phone networks to provide emergency services with whatever information they have about the location a mobile call was made. This directive is based on the FCC's Enhanced 911 ruling in 2001.
The new eCall project for automated emergency calls from cars is based on E1000.
OpulentBob said:
y2blade said:
Gafferjim said:
y2blade said:
These signs are a real pet hate of mine.
I wish the lazy f
kers that do this job would put something useful on the signs if they can't be bothered to update them regularly 
"Keep left unless overtaking" would be a start.
They do from time to time, driver like you ignore them.I wish the lazy f
kers that do this job would put something useful on the signs if they can't be bothered to update them regularly "Keep left unless overtaking" would be a start.
They also set "Don't drink & drive" but we still get plenty over the limit, or causing RTC's due to being over.
They set "check your fuel" but you wouldn't believe how many people run out of fuel.
It's not the signs that are wrong, it's the general motorists that need to switch their brains on
kers. Reads to me as Jim using similar reasoning to assume that you ignore the VMS.
And yes I do think it would be very interesting to actually see what goes on behind the scenes at the control center.
For the standard of driving by the British general public check out todays headlines. http://news.sky.com/story/1137389/sheppey-crash-10...
Gafferjim said:
For the standard of driving by the British general public check out todays headlines. http://news.sky.com/story/1137389/sheppey-crash-10...
Yep, that or any one of the many other dual-carriageway/motorway pileups past or present!
Gafferjim said:
Try this out guys. http://www.trafficengland.com/map.aspx
My inner-nerd loves that. Great link! 
Gafferjim said:
Yes but it only gives you a location based on the triangulation from mobile phone masts, it won't say which c/way, or even which motorway if you're near an interchange.
it may still know more than the driver, too many people now drive to their satnav with no clue where they are or if the route even looks right, I did it this morning looked at the Motorway decided it looked too congested so tried an alternate route the satnav then took me on a very odd route that worked but if I'd had a problem I wouldn't have known where I was.y2blade said:
OpulentBob said:
y2blade said:
Gafferjim said:
y2blade said:
These signs are a real pet hate of mine.
I wish the lazy fkers that do this job would put something useful on the signs if they can't be bothered to update them regularly
"Keep left unless overtaking" would be a start.
They do from time to time, driver like you ignore them.I wish the lazy f
kers that do this job would put something useful on the signs if they can't be bothered to update them regularly "Keep left unless overtaking" would be a start.
They also set "Don't drink & drive" but we still get plenty over the limit, or causing RTC's due to being over.
They set "check your fuel" but you wouldn't believe how many people run out of fuel.
It's not the signs that are wrong, it's the general motorists that need to switch their brains on
kers. Reads to me as Jim using similar reasoning to assume that you ignore the VMS.
And yes I do think it would be very interesting to actually see what goes on behind the scenes at the control
And stuff...
Mandown46 said:
I would reccomend anyone even remotely interested to take up Jim's offer, Its a very decent one, and something that very few people tend to see. You could probably even get a free cuppa out of him
The signs are a constant source of irritation for a lot of us, remember that the 'lazy fkers ' thanks y2blade) that set these signs are motorists too
Im pretty sure Jim has covered nearly all the questions posed, ive just had a quick skim though. No incident, pedestrian, accident, debris, obstruction, workforce, animals, oncoming vehicle, lane closure, or red X' sign will be set, without either something being there, or Police or HATO having taken a report of something being there.
Quite often, yes, there turns out to be nothing there, or whatever was there, has now gone. One example, on our region we have a couple of herds of deer living next to the motorway, every now and then they fancy eating from the hard shoulder, someone calls it in, with a vague location (oooh, my satnav says im 142 miles from London) we then HAVE to set speed restrictions, and animals in road, mainly cause we never know if one will decide its had enough, and fancies the nettles on the other side of the road.
Now, after 5 minutes of the signs going up, they may well wander off back into the undergrowth, in the 10-15 minutes it takes us to get there and search, hundreds of drivers have gone past the end sign, thinking, lazy fkers, nothing even there.
The whole system isnt perfect, but its the best we have, and we honestly do the best we can with them, we are graded pretty regidly on how fast signs are to be cleared after a job is over, its highly unlikely you will see signs on for 'hours' after its done, they have to be off in minutes.
As Ive said in a previous, hatefilled thread, there is quite a few of us HATO on here, and we'll always give you a genuine answer to any questions we can, you'll often get a good idea of how much work goes on behind the scenes too.
I've already Apologised once for my previous comment. The signs are a constant source of irritation for a lot of us, remember that the 'lazy f
kers ' thanks y2blade) that set these signs are motorists tooIm pretty sure Jim has covered nearly all the questions posed, ive just had a quick skim though. No incident, pedestrian, accident, debris, obstruction, workforce, animals, oncoming vehicle, lane closure, or red X' sign will be set, without either something being there, or Police or HATO having taken a report of something being there.
Quite often, yes, there turns out to be nothing there, or whatever was there, has now gone. One example, on our region we have a couple of herds of deer living next to the motorway, every now and then they fancy eating from the hard shoulder, someone calls it in, with a vague location (oooh, my satnav says im 142 miles from London) we then HAVE to set speed restrictions, and animals in road, mainly cause we never know if one will decide its had enough, and fancies the nettles on the other side of the road.
Now, after 5 minutes of the signs going up, they may well wander off back into the undergrowth, in the 10-15 minutes it takes us to get there and search, hundreds of drivers have gone past the end sign, thinking, lazy f
kers, nothing even there.The whole system isnt perfect, but its the best we have, and we honestly do the best we can with them, we are graded pretty regidly on how fast signs are to be cleared after a job is over, its highly unlikely you will see signs on for 'hours' after its done, they have to be off in minutes.
As Ive said in a previous, hatefilled thread, there is quite a few of us HATO on here, and we'll always give you a genuine answer to any questions we can, you'll often get a good idea of how much work goes on behind the scenes too.
Eyes well and truly opened reading this thread.
I'm Genuinely interested now to see behind the scenes.
otolith said:
So, the reason I would like the signs not to "cry wolf" is that they will be more effective in making people react correctly to them. It was a comment on the effectiveness of the system and on human nature, not a self-interested whinge or an attack on GafferJim's colleagues.
Don't worry about it, it seemed bloody obvious to me.Started the 2 - 10 shift today, walked into a reported suicidal person on a bridge over the motorway. Procedures say that this is police led, HATO go to stategic locations ready to assist with closing the motorway if the police call it, usually both directions. Speeds are set on both sides of the bridge for 2 signals prior. Incident dealt with without any need for closures, signals cleared on confirmation by police. So any driver passing under this would not know why the signals were set (incident) and would not see anything.
Then we get a "obstruction" job from the police, 999 call, "an engine, as big as 2 wheelie-bins" in lane 2 between J1-J2, signals set for 50's , then a further call to police, giving this as J2-J3 so we extend the signals to cover, a further call then says J27-J1, so we extend the signals prior to the original settings. We now have signals over 3 junctions, both police & HATO are searching for this "obstruction" in the RCC we are searching CCTV, traffic is flowing as normal, eventually a large plastic sack is seen in the hedge between J27-J1, patrols confirm there's nothing else so sigs are cleared. so a lengthy stretch of c/way with signals, and I'll bet that 99% of drivers thought "what heck are they on for? I'll bet they've forgotten to switch them off!"
A particular pedestrian job tonight, a small group of children as young as 7/8yrs old seen walking down the c/way, signals are set between the junctions on both c/ways (there is no reason why children should be on the motorway, and they often run across both c/ways) The police get numerous calls about this, all confirming the same junctions and same direction, both police & HATO are out there searching (no CCTV in this area) nothing found, signals cleared. Another job were there obviously was a problem and a requirement for signals due to the number of calls received, but somewhere along the line they'd left the c/way, so drivers would then see no reason for those signals.
There were many more jobs, some were no traced, some weren't,
Then we get a "obstruction" job from the police, 999 call, "an engine, as big as 2 wheelie-bins" in lane 2 between J1-J2, signals set for 50's , then a further call to police, giving this as J2-J3 so we extend the signals to cover, a further call then says J27-J1, so we extend the signals prior to the original settings. We now have signals over 3 junctions, both police & HATO are searching for this "obstruction" in the RCC we are searching CCTV, traffic is flowing as normal, eventually a large plastic sack is seen in the hedge between J27-J1, patrols confirm there's nothing else so sigs are cleared. so a lengthy stretch of c/way with signals, and I'll bet that 99% of drivers thought "what heck are they on for? I'll bet they've forgotten to switch them off!"
A particular pedestrian job tonight, a small group of children as young as 7/8yrs old seen walking down the c/way, signals are set between the junctions on both c/ways (there is no reason why children should be on the motorway, and they often run across both c/ways) The police get numerous calls about this, all confirming the same junctions and same direction, both police & HATO are out there searching (no CCTV in this area) nothing found, signals cleared. Another job were there obviously was a problem and a requirement for signals due to the number of calls received, but somewhere along the line they'd left the c/way, so drivers would then see no reason for those signals.
There were many more jobs, some were no traced, some weren't,
Hi folks,
I emailed Jim last night about his offer to let us go and see the inner workings of the control room, and this is a genuine offer. Would anyone be interested in this?
As originator of the debate, happy to organise this... So...
1) Number of people required to make this happen is 10-12 people.
2) You need to be fairly flexible with dates as Jim will be doing this for us on his day off.
3) If you would like to come along, please EMAIL ME (click on my user name, then the "Email me" button) and I'll create the list based on order of receipt.
4) No children please, its an adults only party.
Location is near M6 J23, so thats just west of Manchester, north of Warrington (ish).
Suggest we get 12 people on the list plus up to 8 reserves incase people can't make the date once we've got one.
I'll keep a running list on here. Those who doubt the usefulness of the signs/HA etc might also want to come to see for themselves how it is run and whether or not you really could do any better?
I think this will be a facinating insight into something we, as motorists, take for granted every day.
Huge thanks to Jim for this offer and for doing it on his own time.
The list...
1) Paul O.
Any more...?
I emailed Jim last night about his offer to let us go and see the inner workings of the control room, and this is a genuine offer. Would anyone be interested in this?
As originator of the debate, happy to organise this... So...
1) Number of people required to make this happen is 10-12 people.
2) You need to be fairly flexible with dates as Jim will be doing this for us on his day off.
3) If you would like to come along, please EMAIL ME (click on my user name, then the "Email me" button) and I'll create the list based on order of receipt.
4) No children please, its an adults only party.
Location is near M6 J23, so thats just west of Manchester, north of Warrington (ish).
Suggest we get 12 people on the list plus up to 8 reserves incase people can't make the date once we've got one.
I'll keep a running list on here. Those who doubt the usefulness of the signs/HA etc might also want to come to see for themselves how it is run and whether or not you really could do any better?
I think this will be a facinating insight into something we, as motorists, take for granted every day.
Huge thanks to Jim for this offer and for doing it on his own time.
The list...
1) Paul O.
Any more...?
Edited by Paul O on Friday 6th September 10:20
Paul O said:
Hi folks,
I emailed Jim last night about his offer to let us go and see the inner workings of the control room, and this is a genuine offer. Would anyone be interested in this?
As originator of the debate, happy to organise this... So...
1) Number of people required to make this happen is 10-12 people.
2) You need to be fairly flexible with dates as Jim will be doing this for us on his day off.
3) If you would like to come along, please EMAIL ME (click on my user name, then the "Email me" button) and I'll create the list based on order of receipt.
4) No children please, its an adults only party.
Suggest we get 12 people on the list plus up to 8 reserves incase people can't make the date once we've got one.
I'll keep a running list on here. Those who doubt the usefulness of the signs/HA etc might also want to come to see for themselves how it is run and whether or not you really could do any better?
I think this will be a facinating insight into something we, as motorists, take for granted every day.
Huge thanks to Jim for this offer and for doing it on his own time.
The list...
1) Paul O.
Any more...?
Which control room? I know theres more than one!I emailed Jim last night about his offer to let us go and see the inner workings of the control room, and this is a genuine offer. Would anyone be interested in this?
As originator of the debate, happy to organise this... So...
1) Number of people required to make this happen is 10-12 people.
2) You need to be fairly flexible with dates as Jim will be doing this for us on his day off.
3) If you would like to come along, please EMAIL ME (click on my user name, then the "Email me" button) and I'll create the list based on order of receipt.
4) No children please, its an adults only party.
Suggest we get 12 people on the list plus up to 8 reserves incase people can't make the date once we've got one.
I'll keep a running list on here. Those who doubt the usefulness of the signs/HA etc might also want to come to see for themselves how it is run and whether or not you really could do any better?
I think this will be a facinating insight into something we, as motorists, take for granted every day.
Huge thanks to Jim for this offer and for doing it on his own time.
The list...
1) Paul O.
Any more...?
Mandown46 said:
Apologies for the double post, but we're dealing with a job now that may give people an idea of the timeframes involved in these sorts of jobs.
17:39 - job land in our queue, passed to us from the Police electronically, we have no way of knowing how long they have had the job for, its likely, given the Force, to have been passed to us quickly.
Job description - I am travelling alont the M1 Northbound, I have just passed the services and there is a jockey wheel to a caravan in the middle lane.
Thats it.
17:40 - HATO crew is on the way, dispatched via radio link to the Officers sat waiting
Now, signs, Its a tricky call, how far past the services does this caller think they are, could be 20 yards, could be a couple of miles.
17:40 - (and 41 seconds) Ive set advisory 50mph speed limit, with 'incident' sign written. I could go for debris, but this time ive gone for something more generic, until we can pinpoint it.
Ive set about 3km prior to the services, and gone 5km past the services, hopefully this will cover the location.
17:42 - one of my co-workers has checked CCTV, nothing to be seen (not many cameras here, not unexpected)
17:48 - Crew advises they are in the area searching.
17:53 - Crew advises they have cleared the wheel from the lane 1, turns out it was 700m past the services, so there was exactly 2 signs after where the job was, that were useless, there were 3 signs prior to it, pretty good call, Im happy with it.
17:54 - Signs cleared
17:56 - another report of this passed from police
17:57 - another report of this passed from police
All in all, this went pretty well, we do this all day. Happily, the informant to police wasnt too bad in location, they got the right services, so it was dealt with pretty quickly.
Thank you for that post - excellent work.17:39 - job land in our queue, passed to us from the Police electronically, we have no way of knowing how long they have had the job for, its likely, given the Force, to have been passed to us quickly.
Job description - I am travelling alont the M1 Northbound, I have just passed the services and there is a jockey wheel to a caravan in the middle lane.
Thats it.
17:40 - HATO crew is on the way, dispatched via radio link to the Officers sat waiting
Now, signs, Its a tricky call, how far past the services does this caller think they are, could be 20 yards, could be a couple of miles.
17:40 - (and 41 seconds) Ive set advisory 50mph speed limit, with 'incident' sign written. I could go for debris, but this time ive gone for something more generic, until we can pinpoint it.
Ive set about 3km prior to the services, and gone 5km past the services, hopefully this will cover the location.
17:42 - one of my co-workers has checked CCTV, nothing to be seen (not many cameras here, not unexpected)
17:48 - Crew advises they are in the area searching.
17:53 - Crew advises they have cleared the wheel from the lane 1, turns out it was 700m past the services, so there was exactly 2 signs after where the job was, that were useless, there were 3 signs prior to it, pretty good call, Im happy with it.
17:54 - Signs cleared
17:56 - another report of this passed from police
17:57 - another report of this passed from police
All in all, this went pretty well, we do this all day. Happily, the informant to police wasnt too bad in location, they got the right services, so it was dealt with pretty quickly.
One question - how often is the gap more than a minute between hazard cleared and signed turned off? I'd bet this is the one that frustrates people more than most.
Friday night I came upon an accident,didnt see it but was there shortly after as there was no huge jam.
Thanks to this thread I was able to use the blue marker to identify the exact location to the 999 call taker, rather than just"On the M6 northbound, somewhere north of the M55 junction" as I hadnt taken any notice of how far North I was. Irrelevant to the emergency crews I suppose as they could only have come from Preston,but it may have helped the HA,I dont know
Thanks to this thread I was able to use the blue marker to identify the exact location to the 999 call taker, rather than just"On the M6 northbound, somewhere north of the M55 junction" as I hadnt taken any notice of how far North I was. Irrelevant to the emergency crews I suppose as they could only have come from Preston,but it may have helped the HA,I dont know
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