odd unmarked car seen

[gridgway]

Today I saw a black unmarked BMW 5 series with blues and twos going. It had very darkened windows. It was coming the other way on a local A road, so I was stopping to make space and the car in front of it on the other side of the road to me (IFSWIM) was making his best effort to stop opposite me.

So checking behind I stopped sharpish to make sure it has space to go through and indicated my actions.

Now the odd bit, as it went through, I saw that it had a lady driver (not odd) who looked terrified (odd) as she drove slowly through the gap (much slower than the gap deserved). The male passenger gave me a big thankyou sign as they went through.

It just looked odd!

Graham

[turbobloke]

Fire Officer choosing to use his own vehicle but has already imbibed before the call came so gets swmbo to drive to an inferno? Just a thought

[Boosted LS1]

Chaps, what do your abbreviations mean?

Boosted.

[v15ben]

turbobloke said:

Fire Officer choosing to use his own vehicle but has already imbibed before the call came so gets swmbo to drive to an inferno? Just a thought

Interesting you should say that. My dad used to have a Citroen Xsara Picasso from work as his unmarked car (he is a Fire Officer.) One minute he could be taking me to school in it (oh the shame) then the next he could be blasting down the road to attend a major incident. He was the only person insured to drive it though and was never allowed to have a few bevvies if he was on call or on emergency back-up if another officer was otherwise engaged. Interestingly the Divisional Officer had (and maybe still has) a new E55AMG Merc with blue lights on top - the best unmarked car I have ever seen

[turbobloke]

v15ben said:

turbobloke said: Fire Officer choosing to use his own vehicle but has already imbibed before the call came so gets swmbo to drive to an inferno? Just a thought Interesting you should say that. My dad used to have a Citroen Xsara Picasso from work as his unmarked car (he is a Fire Officer.) One minute he could be taking me to school in it (oh the shame) then the next he could be blasting down the road to attend a major incident. He was the only person insured to drive it though and was never allowed to have a few bevvies if he was on call or on emergency back-up if another officer was otherwise engaged. Interestingly the Divisional Officer had (and maybe still has) a new E55AMG Merc with blue lights on top - the best unmarked car I have ever seen

Fair point, maybe in this case there was an erm insured young lady fire officer 'to hand'

Boosted, did you mean IYSWIM if you seewhat I mean and SWMBO she who must be obeyed

[Boosted LS1]

Thanks TB I don't see abbs like that to often

Boosted.

[puffpuff]

Could also be military; a friend of mine was an army driver and spent three years driving a general around in an unmarked Jag with blues & twos and alternating flashing headlights and he was armed too.

That was in the days when the IRA threat was a problem, I don't know if they still drive such cars.

[julianhj]

Could be a police driver on her blues and twos course.

[scobbo]

It sounds like driver training to me... with the courtesy signal coming from the instuctor as they passed.

In the Met you used to have to be an Advanced Driver to drive a covert car on Blue's and Two's but as part of the "Safer Streets" campaign they changed the rules so that Divisional Response Driver's could drive crime squad cars. This promted a whole rash of two day covert car courses. I imagine similar initiatives are being rolled out elsewhere.

Many MPS departments use covert cars: Each Traffic Garage has a "Provida Car" which is cameraed up . Surviellance, Flying Squad, Special Branch, Royalty Prot and ACPO Rank Officers all use a collection of Luxury motors which you may well see on a shout.

Many Divisions have gone back to the time-honoured (in use since the 1930's) Q Car formula: A powerful unmarked car crewed by a PC Advanced Driver, a DC and a PS.

On this list it is very unlikely that anyone other than Trafpol would take more than a passing interest in driving standards...

[deva link]

The male passenger giving a big thank-you certainly makes me think it would be driver training - that's exactly what the (ex-Police driving instructors) trainers do on our works driver training. They take 'command' of the car in a way that's pretty irritating.