Misfits, Dad's Army Types et al...

[TheRainMaker]

Could well have been, it was very clean but didn’t have any kit on it, all the racks at the back were empty and the ladder looked a bit cack.

It was just the fact it had no markings on the side like Heathrow/ Surrey etc.

[RumbleOfThunder]

Surely instructor vehicles of any type have signs to notify. I think it's a fire Walt.

[ApOrbital]

Yup should have warning signs same as the army,Or a big sticker with a nasty swan on the side.

[anonymous-user]

RumbleOfThunder said:

Surely instructor vehicles of any type have signs to notify. I think it's a fire Walt.

Nope. Too easy for members of the public to think “Oh they’re just training. Don’t need to move” whereas decent learning needs traffic to respond as though it’s the real deal.

[darren9]

Crossflow Kid said:

RumbleOfThunder said:

Surely instructor vehicles of any type have signs to notify. I think it's a fire Walt.

Nope. Too easy for members of the public to think “Oh they’re just training. Don’t need to move” whereas decent learning needs traffic to respond as though it’s the real deal.

Exactly this.

Blue light training vehicles are just the same as normal for that reason.

The lack of kit would suggest that too.

I’m going with real training rather than Walt Jolly on this one.

[Spare tyre]

That engine was or did operate at Heathrow

[Red 4]

darren9 said:

Crossflow Kid said:

RumbleOfThunder said:

Surely instructor vehicles of any type have signs to notify. I think it's a fire Walt.

Nope. Too easy for members of the public to think “Oh they’re just training. Don’t need to move” whereas decent learning needs traffic to respond as though it’s the real deal.

Exactly this.

Blue light training vehicles are just the same as normal for that reason.

The lack of kit would suggest that too.

I’m going with real training rather than Walt Jolly on this one.

It's a fair point.

Years ago, unmarked cars used for police driver training had magnetic signs stuck on the back saying "Police Training".

I think the main purpose of this was to stop them from being stopped by other officers ( often in a different county ) when they were pushing on and it was not immediately apparent the vehicle was, in fact, a police vehicle.
Not all driver training is done using blues and twos and some of the vehicles used for training purposes are a bit different - they aren't all BMW 3 series.

On the flip side of that, I came across a couple of training vehicles who probably thought they were "making progress" when I was responding to a real job.
I hope they got a bit quicker by the end of the course.

[Starfighter]

I had a ride-along in an unmarked car with a “Police Driver Under Instruction” stick on the boot lid. We passed a BMW whist making progress and he tried to keep up. He eventually caught up close enough to read the sign and the. dropped back rather quickly.

[ReaperCushions]

Walting in America hits new lows:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50005833

[Frank7]

CrunkleFloop said:

Richard-390a0 said:

Does that actually say POLICE along the bottom of the drivers door?.

K9 RESPONSE by the looks of it.

That’s what I saw, the same as the words on the windshield.

[GOATever]

https://thewaltercumpershunterclub.wordpress.com/2...

Yet another Airborne Walt. Complete and utter cockwombling spunk trumpet. You’ve gotta love the eBay Maroon machine .

[BossHogg]

I'm more airborne than him, it saddens me to say I failed TA P Coy. I was young and couldn't cut the mustard!

[Oldandslow]

I was in the ATC at school. Does that make me airborne? Sad, sad people, no shame in the RLC.

Anyway back to winter walting. Looking at the weather forecasts it'll soon be time to blow the cobwebs off the M+S tyres and start sleeping with one eye open. Per Ardua!

[anonymous-user]

Oldandslow said:

I was in the ATC at school. Does that make me airborne? Sad, sad people, no shame in the RLC.

Anyway back to winter walting. Looking at the weather forecasts it'll soon be time to blow the cobwebs off the M+S tyres and start sleeping with one eye open. Per Ardua!

My Land Rover and I are braced and ready for the emergency quinoa runs to Waitrose to help my starving neighbours

[yellowjack]

Walt or not, I'm not sure, but I suspect I saw an "Urgent Blood" Walt a few days ago. Coincidentally a day later I saw an 'official' (looking) Blood Bike, a big Honda, white, hi-vis, liveried properly, big panniers, etc. The one I suspect was Walting was a ropey looking Yamaha Fazer with nowt in the way of storage but a small rear box, and the "Urgent Blood" bit no more than an A4 sheet sellotaped to the screen. No hi-vis, no other livery, no realistic storage. Whatever was going on, I certainly wasn't convinced it was anything other than a lame attempt at persuading traffic to let him filter more freely...

[anonymous-user]

“Urgent blood” can cover a multitude of claret though.
He’s probably just a courier punting urgent blood samples about the place from hospital to a lab for screening.
Might be urgent as in there’s a patient waiting for the result, but not urgent in the same way as blood for transfusion.

[Travs]

yellowjack said:

Walt or not, I'm not sure, but I suspect I saw an "Urgent Blood" Walt a few days ago. Coincidentally a day later I saw an 'official' (looking) Blood Bike, a big Honda, white, hi-vis, liveried properly, big panniers, etc. The one I suspect was Walting was a ropey looking Yamaha Fazer with nowt in the way of storage but a small rear box, and the "Urgent Blood" bit no more than an A4 sheet sellotaped to the screen. No hi-vis, no other livery, no realistic storage. Whatever was going on, I certainly wasn't convinced it was anything other than a lame attempt at persuading traffic to let him filter more freely...

Both of these may have been kosher - but in different ways. There are a number of volunteer groups who move blood from Transfusion Centres to Hospitals (and vice versa) outside standard working hours and many of these volunteers have fully liveried bikes. They are not however official NHSBT vehicles.
The scruffier bike may well have been moving blood samples around to a central laboratory, often, but not exclusively, to independent sector facilities. I retired a couple of years ago so may not be au fait with all of the latest developments but most London hospital laboratories are either exclusively independent sector or collaborations with the NHS. The couriers were, in my experience, independent contractors who spent as little as possible on their equipment.

[yellowjack]

Ah. OK. Happy to be educated on any subject I'm not an expert on. It just seemed odd, at the time I spotted it, with the A4 sheet taped to the screen of the bike. Surely if it's just blood/biopsy samples, there'd be no need to mark the bike up at all? Or perhaps the box should have had an official ADR Class 6 'Biohazard' placard/diamond on it? Or maybe a bike means it's below the weight/volume limits for marking up? I would once have had access to the ADR "bible" to look it up, but my speciality was limited to consigning (and marking up) explosives by road...

[anonymous-user]

He might have the note stuck in the screen for when he’s parking at hospitals (probably in the ambulance bay )

[CoolHands]

I used to do courier work and there were loads of those urgent blood bikes back in the 90s before walting was a thing. The scruffy ones like you describe are real.