BIB on the Motorway late at night. Do they still patrol ?!
Discussion
Having to do day trips up north at least once a week at present. I end up leaving the office in Nottingham (up north from where I am!) at 8:30PM or later and toe it 200 miles back home. I've not seen one police car on M1, A43, M40, A34, M3 or M27 en route, in weeks of doing this. The motorways are losing their charm, in my eagerness to get home each time, I've begun to maintain a reasonably rapid pace, whilst keeping 'em peeled. Whilst keen not to push my luck after about 8000 miles of this pesky commute, where are all the BIB ? Have cutbacks, paperwork, donuts or other assignments mean they're no longer patrolling the motorways regularly late evening in the week ?
It's all about targeted intelligence these days. A motorway ANPR can literally read thousands of VRNs in an hour (in some stretches over 300,000 a day). Far easier to sit just downstream of an ANPR site and wait for the control room to shout up for something of interest i imagine. That is assuming they haven't been shafted for a non roads policing job (ala local domestic as they are the "nearest" available unit.
Sir Bagalot said:
I've never seen a marked car on the M3. Have seen plenty of unmarked cars pulling people for speeding though, so watch out!
Define the word, "covered"?Do you mean someone is on there 24/7
Or do you mean, someone is assigned that area along with other areas, trunk roads, and non-motorway roads policing duties?
Been driving since 1992 and there just doesn't seem to be the number of motorway BiB there once were. Got tugged TWICE in the same journey in my young and stupid days on the M62 after making too much progress in my Escort Ghia X. Amazingly I must have lucked out on the attitude test twice because both cops sent me off with nothing other than a severe fly in my ear.
Conversely I got done for 81 on an empty, straight and bone dry stretch of the M4 early one Sunday morning by a scamera, a speed at which most traffic BiBs would leave you alone.
I can't help thinking that lack of traffic cops and the rise of the HATO has lowered driving standards.
Conversely I got done for 81 on an empty, straight and bone dry stretch of the M4 early one Sunday morning by a scamera, a speed at which most traffic BiBs would leave you alone.
I can't help thinking that lack of traffic cops and the rise of the HATO has lowered driving standards.
catfood12 said:
Have cutbacks, paperwork, donuts or other assignments mean they're no longer patrolling the motorways regularly late evening in the week ?
It's not just at night - I regularly drive during the day from the North West to the central South or South East and back and it's very rare to see a marked car.I do see a fair number of unmarked ones though, usually on the hard shoulder dealing with someone, particularly on the M6 Toll and the M40.
Deva Link said:
I do see a fair number of unmarked ones though, usually on the hard shoulder dealing with someone, particularly on the M6 Toll and the M40.
Surely this is the most likely place to see them even if they only spend a short time there, if they are driving along you are considerably less likely to encounter them travelling along with you as they do. And moreover isn't that the flaw in reporting observations of patrolling vehicles?bennyboydurham said:
I can't help thinking that lack of traffic cops and the rise of the HATO has lowered driving standards.
But also the police are now concentrating on police work, instead of looking after MOPs that breakdown, removing debris, dealing with all the other non-police jobs that HATO now does.
Yes, there are also more & more unmarked cars out there, some you just wouldn't imagine were police vehicles.
7db said:
Deva Link said:
I do see a fair number of unmarked ones though, usually on the hard shoulder dealing with someone, particularly on the M6 Toll and the M40.
Surely this is the most likely place to see them even if they only spend a short time there, if they are driving along you are considerably less likely to encounter them travelling along with you as they do. And moreover isn't that the flaw in reporting observations of patrolling vehicles?The point I was making about unmarked cars is they're probably around, even if you don't spot one.
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