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THE JAM BUSTERS
Page 64
Page 65
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Teams of Highways Agency Traffic Officers have started operations ir the south-east of England — Colin Barnett reports for decongestant dut
We met supervisor Dominic Haydon at the Godstone Regional Control Centre at 7.30am on a misty Wednesday morning. Before heading out onto the M25 we took a few minutes for a quick look around our transport for the day: Whiskey Golf 23,a shiny new Range Rover. The M25 crews run a mix of Range Rovers, Discoverys and Toyota Land Cruisers.
Vehicles are leased on18-month,150,000mile contracts, which Haydon reckons probably won't be enough miles. Despite the heavy-duty nature of the vehicles there's a constant battle to keep the gross weights within limits.
On the way out of the RCC site, which also houses police and fire services, Haydon warned us of some of things we could expect. Every shift can expect one case of a foreign truck colliding with a British car, and there are usually a couple of drivers sleeping on the hard shoulder.'The HATOs stop to investigate every vehicle on the hard shoulder, but around one third of stopped vehicles immediately drive off. Other regular stoppers are those with full bladders or sick kids.
On this fine morning in the middle of the school holidays things started off quietly enough.The first call of the day was to be aware of a broken down Ford Escort near J10, but before we got there we were advised that a recovery vehicle was en route. We drove past the driver sitting safely behind the barrier catching up on some paperwork.
Anyone who isn't a member of a recovery organisation,or whose organisation quotes too long an arrival time, can expect to be removed by a police rota company at their own expense.
Abandoned Five minutes later,on the off-slip at J11, we came across a BMW with its hazard lights on. Closer investigation revealed that it was locked up and abandoned, so a note was made to check it on the next pass. Heading east again, having joined up with the regular crew of Whiskey Golf 22, we stopped behind an artic parked on the hard shoulder just past J9.
Jason, the driver of the Stan Robinson Daf XF95, had attempted to downshift on the hill. only to find the gear lever not connected to anything. With considerable skill, he had guided the rapidly slowing 44-tonner from th, centre lane to the hard shoulder without incident and was awaiting DafAid's arrival. Having established that all was well we followed Whiskey Golf 22 to the Reigate Hill tea hut for a chat with the crew during their mid-shift rest break.
Nicola Brown, formerly a pensions administrator, and former estate agent Darre Bryant —at 22 the youngest member of the Godstone team, were being shadowed by Jeanette Chiverton, a former train driver anc wife of a Tesco artic driver, who's training to join the RCC team. Before starting their atrols all recruits go through seven weeks of am lag, including four weeks of classroom 'ork. Driver training is carried out by a )ecialist emergency service training provider.
As HATOs are not permitted to exceed the leed limits, training concentrates on awareness and safe practice rather than high-speed pursuits.
Meanwhile, the first collision of our shift was taking place a few miles away. Near the bottom of the long descent from J8 to J9— dubbed "the runway"by traffic police —guess what... a British car had bounced off a Slovenian artic.
A mile from this incident, we caught up with four lanes of almost stationary traffic, despite the two nearside antries displaying "lane closed" red crosses. ie called into the RCC for specific permission ) pass the signals, but there's obviously a lack f awareness that the these lane-closed' pals are mandatory A considerable number of drivers, including me British truck drivers, obviously think it lows them to drive past the queuing traffic at igh speed, only vacating the lane at the last !cond.The three penalty points and £60 fine teted out to those photographed ignoring the gns should help get the message across. Mind you, that doesn't stop those who drive own the M23 hard shoulder passing the queue to Gatwick, who are prepared to gamble in der to catch their flight. But back to the ovenian incident, no-one was badly hurt and e scene was soon restored to four-lane nning, which is the HATO's top priority. The HATO role is continually developing. At the moment, the crews are only permitted to work on the hard shoulder and in closed lanes. However, within the next few weeks they will be authorised to carry out rolling roadblocks, followed by access to live lanes to execute lane closures.
Suspicious Within five minutes of leaving this incident, we came across a German truck which had repeated the car bouncing trick.This time there was less damage and both vehicles were parked up as their drivers exchanged details.
Then came a call that a car had hit the nearside barrier on the off-slip at Ji 0, and the driver was seen hitching away from the scene. We found the car, but not the driver, and as the vehicle looked somewhat suspicious the matter was handed over to the police.
An abandoned STGO rig carrying a large excavator at J10 was left for a following crew to investigate. We proceeded towards Heathrow but within minutes had stopped to investigate a parked car. It turned out that granny had a lap full of baby vomit, and after the driver had been advised how to rejoin the carriageway he was sent on his way.
The morning's strangest incident occurred right in front of us as we returned towards the out-station at Merryhill, near Gatwick.A motorcyclist was acting strangely, stopping for his pillion to jump off before speeding off, then stopping again. He recounted a tale about how a van driver had waved a knife at him and he hadn't noticed his passenger's departure!
With no worthwhile description to go on the police were unlikely to find the van so we waited for the pillion to join us on foot so the bikers could depart.
However, for the rest of the day, a camera would stay trained on the spot where the passenger jumped off, just in case.
We had an uneventful run back to base, observing only that DafA id had turned up to Jason's assistance, and spotted another noninjury accident involving a German truck and a British car at the top of the M23.
Based on our half-day's experience,the HATO service seems to be an enthusiastic and professional body, keen to fulfil its role of keeping the traffic moving. By the time the service is extended to cover all English motorways by next summer,and then majorAroads, it should be a positive factor in optimising the use of the network. If only they could force foreign drivers to drive on the left. •