Ask a Highways England Traffic Officer anything
Discussion
BossHogg said:
Vans don't have the capability for carriageway clearance that the 4x4s have. I can't comment on the police clearing the vehicle, police in my area haven't got the equipment to clear vehicles, so we do it.
I would like to know just how many vehicles are up-righted by the HA and how many times they are used for carriageway clearance... Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
I would like to know what exemption you operate under?
I travel the whole motorway network, some for work but mainly for pleasure and not once have I ever seen a HA vehicle tow anything. If I had, I wouldn't have posted.
I think that if the legal towing capability was utilised more often, then the horrendous traffic jams we see all the time would be lessened.
But I still cannot see the need for the HA to use 4x4's.
Maybe the patrols require re educating to what the vehicles can do and what they should be doing to assist in the free flow of traffic... after all that is their purpose isn't it?
FlyingFin said:
I have only skimmed through this thread so forgive me if its been asked before...
Why do you use expensive 4x4 vehicles instead of Vans?
I also want to know this. Transport Scotland Support Vehicles - The Scottish 'equivalent' of the highways agency use them. More storage space, more practical, would certainly be able to upright a vehicle and I'm sure the contract with MBvans/ Iveco etc would be cheaper to lease/buy/service/run than all the Disco's and Mitsubishis. They even have a very handy high-rise message board so people in the distance know why the hell they're doing 17mph on the motorway. Why do you use expensive 4x4 vehicles instead of Vans?
I understand 4x4 for adverse weather but if the emergency services can cope in adverse weather with what they're given I'm sure these guys can too.
Cognoscenti said:
I also want to know this. Transport Scotland Support Vehicles - The Scottish 'equivalent' of the highways agency use them. More storage space, more practical, would certainly be able to upright a vehicle and I'm sure the contract with MBvans/ Iveco etc would be cheaper to lease/buy/service/run than all the Disco's and Mitsubishis. They even have a very handy high-rise message board so people in the distance know why the hell they're doing 17mph on the motorway.
A Vito van has done a tour of the country on trial over the last few years. As it hasn’t been rolled out en masse I assume it wasn’t deemed suitable by the vehicles team.With regard to the Traffic Scotland vans, similar are used by incident support units all over the country who come along in the later stages of an incident to mop up etc so they are certainly out there in HE livery, just not used by traffic officers.
For towing and righting vehicles, RRBs etc any things that HE do are all cleared by DFT and/or ACPO at some level or the staff wouldn’t be allowed to do it. Every time this happens it is logged sonwould be trivial to obtain under a FOI if you really wanted to. Watch one of the various documentaries that are on at the moment and you will see it in action...
FlyingFin said:
I would like to know just how many vehicles are up-righted by the HA and how many times they are used for carriageway clearance...
Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
What were those dangers then out of interest? Apart from damaging the drivetrain in your police vehicles of course. It sounds to me like you were applying common sense and your superior was a nob. Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
I’m not sure dragging something out of the way for recovery purposes can be classed as the same as exceeding MTW’s in towing law e.t.c.
Leptons said:
FlyingFin said:
I would like to know just how many vehicles are up-righted by the HA and how many times they are used for carriageway clearance...
Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
What were those dangers then out of interest? Apart from damaging the drivetrain in your police vehicles of course. It sounds to me like you were applying common sense and your superior was a nob. Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
I’m not sure dragging something out of the way for recovery purposes can be classed as the same as exceeding MTW’s in towing law e.t.c.
I’ve witness HA/HE tow hundreds of vehicles from the live lane (in all sort of states e.g on roof/side/missing bits).
That is why we have the load cell so we can clear vehicles within the capability of the patrol car, if the alarm goes off, we abandon the carriageway clearance and call recovery. The only times you'll see us sat behind a car/small van etc is when the vehicle is damaged leaking fuel/oil, it's easier to clean/resurface one lane than drag the vehicle across all lanes and risk having to shut the motorway completely.
Have you ever been offered ‘special thanks’ by a young, or indeed old, stranded lady?
My mate had a short tenure as an RAC man, he reckoned damsels in distress were fair game for a bunk up and did indeed have success with a couple. He likened his orange hi-viz to that of a knight in shining armour!
My mate had a short tenure as an RAC man, he reckoned damsels in distress were fair game for a bunk up and did indeed have success with a couple. He likened his orange hi-viz to that of a knight in shining armour!
PurpleTurtle said:
Have you ever been offered ‘special thanks’ by a young, or indeed old, stranded lady?
My mate had a short tenure as an RAC man, he reckoned damsels in distress were fair game for a bunk up and did indeed have success with a couple. He likened his orange hi-viz to that of a knight in shining armour!
Bit cramped in the back of the van?My mate had a short tenure as an RAC man, he reckoned damsels in distress were fair game for a bunk up and did indeed have success with a couple. He likened his orange hi-viz to that of a knight in shining armour!
FlyingFin said:
I would like to know just how many vehicles are up-righted by the HA and how many times they are used for carriageway clearance...
Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
I would like to know what exemption you operate under?
I travel the whole motorway network, some for work but mainly for pleasure and not once have I ever seen a HA vehicle tow anything. If I had, I wouldn't have posted.
I think that if the legal towing capability was utilised more often, then the horrendous traffic jams we see all the time would be lessened.
But I still cannot see the need for the HA to use 4x4's.
Maybe the patrols require re educating to what the vehicles can do and what they should be doing to assist in the free flow of traffic... after all that is their purpose isn't it?
Why does it matter how many vehicles are righted with a Discovery, they need the capability to do it and might as well have one vehicle that can deal with most it encounters rather that having several, specialized machines.Maybe a freedom of information request would cover that...
I have NEVER seen a HA vehicle do anything but sit behind the broken down vehicle leaving it there for the recovery to attend to...
As for your comments on another post, what allows you to massively exceed the vehicles towing weight by towing a 44 tonne vehicle behind one which is probably plated to approximately 6 tonnes or so MTW?
As a young Police Traffic officer in the late 80's, I was called in to explain to the Traffic Centre Inspector, along with my colleagues, why we had towed a 36 tonne tipper truck with a pair of Range Rovers, up hill, to clear the carriageway at a junction...
The dangers of our actions was pointed out,(namely grossly exceeding the max permissible towing weight of the RR) and we were instructed that under NO circumstances, except to save life or limb, were we to do that again, as we had no legal exemption to exceeding the weight limits by such a horrendous amount!
I would like to know what exemption you operate under?
I travel the whole motorway network, some for work but mainly for pleasure and not once have I ever seen a HA vehicle tow anything. If I had, I wouldn't have posted.
I think that if the legal towing capability was utilised more often, then the horrendous traffic jams we see all the time would be lessened.
But I still cannot see the need for the HA to use 4x4's.
Maybe the patrols require re educating to what the vehicles can do and what they should be doing to assist in the free flow of traffic... after all that is their purpose isn't it?
They are not towing 44 tonne artics for 80,000 miles per year, they just need to move them a few yards. The transmissions will be torque convertor autos, and the torque convertor will just stall if it can't pull it. There won't be any damage as has been demonstrated by the OP saying they have 150k on a 3 year old machine with just normal wear and tear.
It must surely be better for the OP to move a stranded truck a few yards while he's there than wait who know how long for a 50 tonne wrecker to come in and do the job. Exactly what issues do you foresee with towing 44 tonnes onto the hard shoulder with a Discovery? The driver of the lorry will be in the seat steering and braking. Were the HA getting issues, they'd stop them pulling so dead trucks with Discoverys and buy them something else.
Just because you've never seen them pulling anything doesn't mean they don't. You only see a snap shot of their working day and in all likelyhood, when you are able to drive past them, they have nothing going on anyway. Or do you expect them to be towing wounded lorries to the nearest dealer with a Land Rover? Our tractors at work are only plated to pull 32t. The 400hp, one that weighs nearly 14 tonnes would find a 44 tonne artic childs play.
BossHogg said:
Carriageway clearance, is just that, moving the vehicle from the live lane to the hard shoulder to reopen the lane. We don't move them great distances, 40-50 m at the most.
Yer but, you need Class 1, tacho, drivers CPCs, a note from your mum and a 600hp monster truck to do that. 
Willy Nilly said:
BossHogg said:
Carriageway clearance, is just that, moving the vehicle from the live lane to the hard shoulder to reopen the lane. We don't move them great distances, 40-50 m at the most.
Yer but, you need Class 1, tacho, drivers CPCs, a note from your mum and a 600hp monster truck to do that. Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff