Highway Patrols
New teams start work today on the motorways around Birmingham
Today sees the introduction of teams of "Traffic Officers" take to the motorways around Birmingham. The employees of the Highways Agency will patrol the motorways around Birmingham in high visibility vehicles ready to deal with incidents on the roads.
The plan is to free up traffic police from some of the duties that they're currently required to perform such as managing delays and incidents on the motorways. The plan is to let Traffic Officers manage traffic after accidents and to deal with debris in the carriageway, broken down vehicles etc.
Transport Secretary Alistair Darling blurted, "The new traffic officers will improve services to motorist s - making journeys more reliable and ensuring that time spent in jams is kept to a minimum. By simplifying traffic management responsibilities, the new traffic officers will enable the police to focus their efforts on their core role of tackling crime ."
More than 50 traffic officers - both on the road and in the control room - will start in the West Midlands today, increasing to 180 by the end of the year. Initially, four patrols - two traffic officers in each vehicle - will operate in two shifts from 6am to 8pm, increasing to 14 patrols round-the-clock by the end of the year. The new service will eventually comprise 1,200 traffic officers, supported by 300 staff in seven Regional Control Centres.
Chief Constable Stephen Green, Chair of the Association of Chief Police Officers Roads Policing Operational Forum said, "The release of police staff from network management tasks that do not require the skills, powers or training of a constable will enable chief police officers to refocus the efforts of their staff on patrolling, investigating incidents and reducing crime on the motorway network ."
There must be something I'm missing.
Here's where we talked about the effect they're trying to avoid...
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=55231&f=10&h=0
Anyway... I think Hants police already use a private contractor (RCS?) for much incident management work on the M3 & M27.
>> Edited by CarZee on Monday 26th April 18:53
Not exactly a leap but maybe, just maybe, the goons are listening.
(I know: who the hell am I kidding?)
Yes, I can understand what they are trying to achieve, but its the same old same old with a marked up Merc ML in the inside lane doing 70. That is, everyone else suddenly slows to 70, so you can't overtake for love nor money and your progress is somewhat impeded by the prescence of the BiB.
Strangely enough, when they turned off at J4 (to turn around and go back up presumably), everyone speeded up.
Personal opinion follows, jury out on this one but with a tendency to be not that keen. Depends more upon overall implementation and resource allocation imo.
Having said that both yesterday and today traffic units were actually doing proper traffic policing on this section as opposed to usual tasks involving inserting broom in rear and ......
Flat in Fifth said:
Like him or loathe him N Wales CC Richard Brunstrop recently predicted fisticuffs following jurisdiction disputes on the hard shoulder.
Personal opinion follows, jury out on this one but with a tendency to be not that keen. Depends more upon overall implementation and resource allocation imo.
Having said that both yesterday and today traffic units were actually doing proper traffic policing on this section as opposed to usual tasks involving inserting broom in rear and ......
If the wankstain thinks its a bad idea then clearly it must be a good one. After all he is from Brighton.
I appreciate your concerns regarding "what powers will they be given tomorrow?" - but lets see how it pans out hey?
The motorways around Birmingham (inc Worcestershire, Warwickshire and West Midlands) have for over 10 years now been covered by the Central Motorway Police Group, so there are no jursidictional issues. Also, CMPG already have the assistance of Amey Mouchell (Highways Agency Contractors), for traffic management and the clear up of major incidents.
The advantages that HATOs (Higways Agency Traffic Officers) will bring are many and varied and include such things as not needing to tie police officers up with non policing matters such as broken down cars and animals on the carriageway, leaving more officers available to deal with proper policing jobs, like speeding, serious RTCs and other traffic offences.
It should herald a great improvement in motorway safety. And as the HATOs will eventually get more powers, things can only get better.
SM-Jamie said:
Just to set a few things straight re the above:
With respect to set a few things straight......
This thread was started in the very eary days of HATOs.
What you quote is what HM Govt wants us to believe, and a good story it sounds on face value.
However since then there have been quite a number of threads mainly over in SP&L where issues arising from actual experiences and observations have been worth airing.
The reality leaves a lot.... repeat A LOT.... to be desired.
>> Edited by Flat in Fifth on Thursday 16th December 10:30
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