Ask a Highways England Traffic Officer anything

[bigandclever]

PF62 said:

Do any other staff in civil service departments which are not military or law enforcement also wear 'fancy dress', especially as they are employed in non-public facing roles?

I appreciate this is desperately pedantic, but they’re not civil servants. They work for a company owned by the government, since April 2015.

[PF62]

bigandclever said:

PF62 said:

Do any other staff in civil service departments which are not military or law enforcement also wear 'fancy dress', especially as they are employed in non-public facing roles?

I appreciate this is desperately pedantic, but they’re not civil servants. They work for a company owned by the government, since April 2015.

Actually it makes it even more amusing that they need to dress up and pretend they need a law enforcement/military uniform.

Do they go round saluting each other?

[spyder dryver]

skinthespin said:

What a strange thread. Come on here to dispel myths etc, I had a higher opinion BEFORE you posted.

If my wife has a puncture with my son in the car you stand and watch and offer advice rather than help over some unionised health and safety clap trap, pathetic. What kind of decent human being does that, call yourself a man?!

Nothing to do with any Union and more to do with "compensation culture".
Funnily enough I had no opinion of you BEFORE you posted.
I do now.
Why not regale us all with heartwarming tales of the many, many times you have stopped by the wayside, in the rain, on a Bank Holiday, to help a fellow traveller change his head gasket or something.
Go on. Make something up.

I know neither you nor the OP from Adam. I do know that (at least) one of you deserves some respect.

Happy New Year OP!


Forgot to ask a question...

What's the craziest thing you have been called out to pick up off the carriageway?

Edited by spyder dryver on Monday 1st January 11:29

[InitialDave]

The epaulettes and braiding are pretty cringeworthy.

[BossHogg]

We are still an operational organisation with a rank structure to identify responsibilities. A traffic officer patrols/control centre, a team manager runs a team of traffic officers and an operations manager runs a county/control centre. The bars on the epaulettes identify who is what, and our collar numbers identify individual officers, what's the problem with that?

[anonymous-user]

[Kernow67]

PF62 said:

Do any other staff in civil service departments which are not military or law enforcement also wear 'fancy dress', especially as they are employed in non-public facing roles?

Fire & Rescue Service
Ambulance Service
HM Coastguard
As well as Highways England

All people who in one way or another may at some point try and prevent you being killed... wonder why they bother

[Evanivitch]

Kernow67 said:

Fire & Rescue Service
Ambulance Service
HM Coastguard
As well as Highways England

All people who in one way or another may at some point try and prevent you being killed... wonder why they bother

Emergency call centre staff are civies in uniform too.

[chunder27]

I do think to be honest there is an element of cost saving police wise here.

Agreed the HA guys do a decent job, but quite why the whole uniform, cars, general everything needs to be so similar to the police is baffling.

is it simply to try and make them look like the police at any cost?

I can see no reason why the cars could not be a different eyecatching colour, the drivers did not have to wear almost the same colours as plod and I never even knew about the ranking system

That has made me feel a little embarassed about the whole thing!

[BossHogg]

We are easily distinguishable from the police due to our orange/yellow jacket, our colleagues in DVSA on the other hand.
https://goo.gl/images/zjVMt8

[Pistom]

BossHogg said:

We are still an operational organisation with a rank structure to identify responsibilities. A traffic officer patrols/control centre, a team manager runs a team of traffic officers and an operations manager runs a county/control centre. The bars on the epaulettes identify who is what, and our collar numbers identify individual officers, what's the problem with that?

Not sure if people just have a problem with a rank system in the UK.

This entire thread has really opened my eyes with regards to HE and other than the management failings which tend to be present in most large organisations, it seems to be a worthwhile job where the public facing employees are not given an easy time of it.

It's given me a better appreciation of what you do.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

I think that all the HE-types that have posted here come out of it rather well.

As for the uniform, I'm not at all sure why anyone would have an issue with it - what do you want them to wear? The chap who drives your train has a uniform, and any way of easily identifying public servants has to be a good thing. If it bothers people that, on casual glance, they look like police, so what? What are you doing that makes that a problem?

Well done to all those who design, build, maintain and patrol our roads - considering we're a busy and over-crowded little island, they're generally a pretty safe place to be.

[InitialDave]

People out there doing the job, I see no issue with it.

Someone who isn't military or police having an office uniform with epaulettes etc just seems silly to me. I would just expect normal smart attire or a polo shirt or something.

[BossHogg]

It's not just office based staff, the uniform is company wide irrespective of the location they work. When I was a civilian detention officer for the police, I wore a uniform with epaulettes and a collar number and I only worked in the cells.

Edited by BossHogg on Monday 1st January 16:30

[PF62]

CharlesdeGaulle said:

As for the uniform, I'm not at all sure why anyone would have an issue with it - what do you want them to wear? The chap who drives your train has a uniform, and any way of easily identifying public servants has to be a good thing.

It is the control centre staff who need managers wearing a uniform with bars on their epaulettes so they can identify responsibilities that amuses me.

Taking the example of the person driving the train has a uniform, of course they do. However the non-customer facing staff in the train company control centre and their managers don't feel the need to have a fancy dress outfit to know who does what and who is in charge.

[Bigends]

PF62 said:

It is the control centre staff who need managers wearing a uniform with bars on their epaulettes so they can identify responsibilities that amuses me.

Taking the example of the person driving the train has a uniform, of course they do. However the non-customer facing staff in the train company control centre and their managers don't feel the need to have a fancy dress outfit to know who does what and who is in charge.

Control room uniform is often corporate image purposes. We have a state of the art room - I assume they didnt want staff rolling up in any old clobber so uniform was provided with different colour epaullettes to differentiate roles within the room. My unit was located within the control room but not part of the rooms function but we were still uniformed - suited me - didnt have to worry about what to wear each day.

[Trif]

Do you always block off the minimum number of lanes that are strictly necessary? Because it often doesn't look to be the case by the time I arrive at a incident.
Why did they bother putting the red X's above 3 lanes of the M25 at rush hour? No one is going anywhere anyway, not least being able to go through 3 lanes of near stationary traffic.
Do you get as frustrated by people not being able to drive in a straight line as I do?

[anonymous-user]

InitialDave said:

I would just expect normal smart attire or a polo shirt or something.

You do realise it took about 3 years and a load of trials etc to get a polo shirt including the head of one department getting a bking for going outside 'procurement rules' by saying just get the bloody things, admittedly he was from private sector and has now gone back to it.
The 'career' C/S really struggled (and still do) with trying to work in an 'operational' environment where decisions had to be made without a committee.
Who on earth at the start thought a white collared shirt and tie was sensible for working in a filthy environment needed their head banging, then banging again.

[anonymous-user]

I always thought that these guys were just Police helpers really, now I know they have even fewer roles? All credit for people helping on the roads but there has to be a better way than paying a task force of people with little responsibility? It would obviously cost more but I can't see the value, I'd pay for more traffic cops and would love to see the bill for TA staff used in other ways.

[BossHogg]

yonex said:

I always thought that these guys were just Police helpers really, now I know they have even fewer roles? All credit for people helping on the roads but there has to be a better way than paying a task force of people with little responsibility? It would obviously cost more but I can't see the value, I'd pay for more traffic cops and would love to see the bill for TA staff used in other ways.

Little responsibility? Minor non injury RTCs, live lane debris, breakdowns, abandoned vehicles, pedestrians, carriageway defects, infrastructure damage, traffic management for serious/fatal RTCs fuel spills, rolling road blocks for carriageway repairs, lane closures for offside wagon tyre changes vehicle fires etc, carriageway clearance to reopen lanes after RTCs, rolling blocks for attempted suicides, sitting with damaged vehicles waiting for recovery, arranging recovery for people without any. We do this on a daily basis. One of our own was killed by a speeding motorist while waiting for recovery of RTC damaged vehicles. The list of what we do is extensive. The majority of which doesn't require a police officer, they can put their skills to better use.