A traffic officer killed on duty

[baldy1926]

I know we have several highways agency staff on the site.
Hope they are all safe we all know motorways can be a dangerous place for workers
A friend of mine who works in the east mids control room just posted this.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-35628...

Mods i did not know if here or neews section would have been best

[DaveH23]

Condolences to the family and Id strongly suggest changing the title of your post OP.

[Hamish Finn]

DaveH23 said:

Condolences to the family and Id strongly suggest changing the title of your post OP.

This, but I assume he cannot change the thread title? Time to report the post so that the mods can.

[baldy1926]

Thanks for the thread title change

[Raine Man]

I was heading north on the M6 and came up to the closure at J37. When I saw the traffic still backing up some 7 hours later I knew it must have been a bad one.

Can't imagine how tough it must be for his family. Here's hoping that his colleague can pull through.

http://www.cumbriacrack.com/2016/02/22/police-name...

[BossHogg]

RIP Adam, it was a privilege to have known and worked with you. Your wit and humour will be sorely missed, the station will never be the same again, god bless mate - state 11.

[anonymous-user]

Post incident bulletin
http://www.highways.gov.uk/traffic-information/tra...

Mandown46 said:

Its a damn shame, people just do not realise how dangerous the motorways can be.

Also worth remembering that the only HETO's killed or seriously injured at work have all been on the hard shoulder, not a safe place.

[Digga]

I always wince at the bravery of those hardy souls whose job requires them to be on the hard shoulder of a live motorway. They provide a great service at a very significant personal risk. RIP.

As an aside from this individual incident, I really do think we're almost at a crisis point with UK motorways. The litany of closures is testament to the plainly obvious fact the network is operating so far above safe capacity that incidents regularly spiral out of control.

[Trax]

speedyguy said:

Post incident bulletin
http://www.highways.gov.uk/traffic-information/tra...

Mandown46 said:

Its a damn shame, people just do not realise how dangerous the motorways can be.

Also worth remembering that the only HETO's killed or seriously injured at work have all been on the hard shoulder, not a safe place.

Thanks for the link to the report, it was interesting to read how these type of events unfold, and what goes into trying to resolve traffic issues.

BossHogg, my thoughts are with you and the team. Thank you for doing the work you do, keep safe out there. Hopefully some sort of 'lessons' will be learnt, on how to keep people safe on the hard shoulder in similar circumstances.

Does something need to be done regarding unecessary stops on the the hard shoulder? Whilst this wasnt a Police stop, everytime we are pulled over for some trivial offence, our lives are put in danger.

[oyster]

Given the hundreds of cars I see each week who pile on recklessly through red X's on the M25 I'm surprised there aren't more such horrible tragedies.

But I guess a few deaths are ok so long as these folks all get home in time for tea eh?


Edited to add my thoughts to the brave officer killed. That picture of him with his son really brings it home.
Be safe out there please PH'ers.

[speedchick]

Raine Man said:

I was heading north on the M6 and came up to the closure at J37. When I saw the traffic still backing up some 7 hours later I knew it must have been a bad one.

We were southbound, just getting on the M6 as they closed it, the website was saying that it would reopen around 2.30pm, so we stopped off and did the shopping, thinking that by the time we got back on it would be clear. Over an hour to do jct40 to 39, heard N/B was closed which then implies air ambulance, then the reopen time was given as 10pm, at that point we knew it was bad. We then spent 5 hours trying to get over Shap on the A6. We ended up cheating and finding a road that would get us back on at 37. Stopped at the services and was told there that it had been a Highways guy on a job. RIP

[baldy1926]

Has anything been said about the driver who hit the highways agency staff.
Has he/she been arrested yet.
The highways agency are also very cautious for obvious reasons with scene management so it will be interesting to see what happened.
I believe this is the first death for a few years which is 1 to many.
RIP to the officer who lost his life and i hope the other chap makes a full recovery.


Unfortunately the good old public will still drive to close to other vehicles and ignore the speed limits

[BossHogg]

Police investigations are still ongoing, we haven't been given any further information as yet.

[Digga]

baldy1926 said:

Has anything been said about the driver who hit the highways agency staff...

Unfortunately the good old public will still drive to close to other vehicles and ignore the speedlimits

Sadly, although many and various factors contribute to most of the utterly needless collisions with emergency vehicles and crashes in general, it is the latter that keeps getting latched onto:

Driving I'll, tired, with poor eyesight
Distraction from phones, books, kids etc. etc.
Poorly maintained vehicles

But speed cameras will no doubt eventually be the proposed sticking plaster. Does a disservice for all who use the roads, especially those whose lives are so firmly on the line in the course of their work.

[BossHogg]

In memory of Adam, Bullshire Police shop have commissioned a memorial tiepin in both police/HETO battenburg. With Adam's name and collar number RIP on the rear tyre of both.



http://bullshireshop.co.uk/product/policeheto-disc...

[Blakewater]

I know I keep going on about it but this is why I don't like the idea of smart motorways and the hard shoulder being taken away. If your disabled car can make it to a refuge area it can probably make it off the motorway but there will always be people who get stuck between refuge areas and can't carry on. It only takes one idiot to disregard a red X denoting a lane closure to pile into the back of the stationary vehicle.

[Digga]

Blakewater said:

I know I keep going on about it but this is why I don't like the idea of smart motorways and the hard shoulder being taken away. If your disabled car can make it to a refuge area it can probably make it off the motorway but there will always be people who get stuck between refuge areas and can't carry on. It only takes one idiot to disregard a red X denoting a lane closure to pile into the back of the stationary vehicle.

I know what you're saying but having been stranded on a hard shoulder twice (most meorable being a blown turbo on an Isuzu Trooper which fogged-out both carriageways on the M42) I'm not really sure it's that much safer. These euro truckers, drifting along, watching telly/wking/on their phones/making a pot of coffee will regularly drift well onto the hard shoulder without any thought and the advice to GTF out of your vehicle is a very good one.

I personally think the camera system needs diverting from the easy but ultimately unproductive task of penalising minor speed infringements to actually capturing proof of driver inattentiveness and strongly prosecuting it.

[anonymous-user]

This isn't really the thread for discussing smart motorways, (other threads are available)

Just bear in mind this other recent incident when your are stood or stopped on the Hardshoulder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6wCwR5F35o#action...

I have been stood HS with people when a motorcyclist came off unexpectedly, both him and the bike slid past at a fair old rate of knots thankfully we weren't skittled by a sliding bike or rider but the 'laughing teenagers' with us soon got over the barrier probably with brown pants and stayed there well out of the way.

[Digga]

About 15 years back, my wife and I had the misfortune to be involved in a multi-vehicle as we were traveling by taxi at (unwise IMHO) speed from Munich airport into the city. Long story short an HGV tyre let go in a big way, he nudged another car, but not hard fortunately but us and other vehicles collected all sorts of debris.

Rules being what they are in Germany, everyone who thought they might be involved had to stop to await the police and in the ensuing carnage there were many near misses, including one car which hit the whole tread of said tyre and flipped it pogo-ing the car about 2 foot in the car. Mercifully there were no injuries, but we were as far behind the barrier and up the embankment as we could get and still being hit by big chunks of flying rubber.

[BossHogg]

speedyguy said:

This isn't really the thread for discussing smart motorways, (other threads are available)

Just bear in mind this other recent incident when your are stood or stopped on the Hardshoulder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6wCwR5F35o#action...

It was a similar type of incident that killed my colleague on Sunday!