XC90 blues and twos convoy

[bristolracer]

Driving home down the M5 yesterday, approaching Exeter, I was overtaken by a newish marked traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away.
I guess this was some kind of VIP convoy, however it was their speed which surprised me. They must have been the wrong side of 90 and were not hanging about.
What would be the purpose of such a convoy? and why the speed?
Even if you are a senior politician or Royal, do you have the authority to speed simply because you are late?

[Cyberprog]

bristolracer said:

Driving home down the M5 yesterday, approaching Exeter, I was overtaken by a newish marked traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away.
I guess this was some kind of VIP convoy, however it was their speed which surprised me. They must have been the wrong side of 90 and were not hanging about.
What would be the purpose of such a convoy? and why the speed?
Even if you are a senior politician or Royal, do you have the authority to speed simply because you are late?

I think the justification of not hanging around is that they are better trained to do those speeds, and also that the VIP is at less risk from other road users / other parties.

That does sound like possible firearms teams heading to a job though, VIP lot tend to use rangies and will have bikes too.

[Sebring440]

bristolracer said:

Driving home down the M5 yesterday, approaching Exeter, I was overtaken by a newish marked traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away.
I guess this was some kind of VIP convoy, however it was their speed which surprised me. They must have been the wrong side of 90 and were not hanging about.
What would be the purpose of such a convoy? and why the speed?
Even if you are a senior politician or Royal, do you have the authority to speed simply because you are late?

"traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away." — In all seriousness, how does that compute into a "a senior politician or Royal who is late"?

Have you never seen a police car with blue lights flashing and (probably) going above the speed limit before?

[bristolracer]

Sebring440 said:

"traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away." — In all seriousness, how does that compute into a "a senior politician or Royal who is late"?

Have you never seen a police car with blue lights flashing and (probably) going above the speed limit before?

Would you care to enlighten us all with what was occurring then?
4 xc90s, one marked and 3 unmarked, in convoy travelling at speed in rural Devon, seems a little out of the ordinary,No?
But please feel free to be patronising and rude to my idle musings

[Charlie1986]

ARV deployment- Any royal or VIP would have a escort group of bikes and more likely some rangies.

Most ARV units are in X5 or XC90. Kent have the XC90 mostly unmarked

[Peter76]

Are the armed Police not using XC90s in place of X5s these days?

Edited by Peter76 on Friday 20th August 15:33

[Chrisgr31]

It would almost be a surprise to find Royals with a blue light escort on the motorway. Almost better for them to blend it with the traffic I would have thought. Obviously they need an escort in major cities where there is lots of traffic but even then I doubt every trip is escorted

[QuickQuack]

bristolracer said:

Sebring440 said:

"traffic XC90 followed closely by 3 new black XC90s all with covert lights all flashing away." — In all seriousness, how does that compute into a "a senior politician or Royal who is late"?

Have you never seen a police car with blue lights flashing and (probably) going above the speed limit before?

Would you care to enlighten us all with what was occurring then?
4 xc90s, one marked and 3 unmarked, in convoy travelling at speed in rural Devon, seems a little out of the ordinary,No?
But please feel free to be patronising and rude to my idle musings

If a politician or Royal is senior enough to warrant a police escort under any circumstances, they would most likely be several grades above the people they're late for and those that are waiting would simply have to carry on waiting. The risk to the politician or the Royal in a high speed blue light conveyance would be too high. The more senior one is, the less concerned one is about being late.

[MustangGT]

bristolracer said:

Even if you are a senior politician or Royal, do you have the authority to speed simply because you are late?

No, but then the senior politician or Royal was not the one driving.

[Alex@POD]

I remember watching a TV series some time back, some government operative was being whisked about at high speed "because it was easier to identify anyone trying to follow". That was fictional of course, but could there be any rules along those lines?

[Emeye]

I live not too far from the GMP anti-terrorism HQ - they appear to have an eclectic mix of vehicles, but they are all black.

Not sure why black is the colour of choice for unmarked armed response police vehicles.

[Spurry]

Emeye said:

I live not too far from the GMP anti-terrorism HQ - they appear to have an eclectic mix of vehicles, but they are all black.

Not sure why black is the colour of choice for unmarked armed response police vehicles.

Black Cars Matter !

[Tony1963]

Back in the mid-80s I used to handle visiting aircraft at RAF Marham. Obviously with Sandringham being quite close we had a fair number of royal flights. One evening we had Liz the German coming in, and her chauffeur arrived hours before the flight.
We had a good chat with him, and obviously the subject of speed came up. He said usually he’d stay at or near the speed limit on duals and motorway, but occasionally Liz would request more urgency. And rarely did they have an escort or any sort, especially at night. And remember that this was the heyday of Irish republican attacks.

[Earthdweller]

Emeye said:

I live not too far from the GMP anti-terrorism HQ - they appear to have an eclectic mix of vehicles, but they are all black.

Not sure why black is the colour of choice for unmarked armed response police vehicles.

Knowing exactly where the NWCTU is based I’m sure most of the vehicles you see going to/from aren’t actually police cars but privately owned vehicles

Granted, GMP do have a couple of black X5’s but one of them is a motorway enforcement car

[anonymous-user]

ARVs or Traffic I'd imagine.

Nudging 90 isn't really that fast for a blue light run on a major road.

[bigandclever]

Probably something as mundane as training.

[Vanden Crash]

As an xc90 owner (fantastic car btw) what would be the punishment for adding blue flashing lights under the grille?

Back in the day my friend did this to his white Capri in Manchester and had no issues when making progress

[Emeye]

Earthdweller said:

Knowing exactly where the NWCTU is based I’m sure most of the vehicles you see going to/from aren’t actually police cars but privately owned vehicles

Granted, GMP do have a couple of black X5’s but one of them is a motorway enforcement car

Strange, but on two occasion I have seen them all flying along in convoy they all had flashing lights on, so very unlikely to be staff cars. Granted the last time was probably a few years ago, but they were all black. Maybe they were just visiting and it was Bodie and Doyle eh? I remember one of them was a black Mercedes van.

[anonymous-user]

Vanden Crash said:

As an xc90 owner (fantastic car btw) what would be the punishment for adding blue flashing lights under the grille?

Back in the day my friend did this to his white Capri in Manchester and had no issues when making progress

This has to be a wind up?

Jail.

Impersonating police.

[67Dino]

Can’t hear sirens without quoting the legendary Eric Morecambe…

https://youtu.be/myptvBfapls