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Queen of the road
Page 24
Page 25
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She's got an encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK's roads — and a
voice to soothe the most frazzled of drivers. Emma Penny met Sally Boazman, a heroine for truckers and their bosses everywhere.
picture the scene: a dark little office off a corridor deep in the bowels of BBC Broadcasting House but one in which a telephone is constantly ring*, with callers leaving crucial messages It's the world inhabited by Sally Boazman or SallyTraffic as her fans know her and it's the nerve centre of the best known national travel news service in the UK.
Few people who have driven on the UK's roads can have failed to tune in to the honeyed tones of Boazman. Her weekday six-hour stint, from lpm to 7pm, is required listening for anyone who wants to know where traffic jams are right now rather than after they've joined a 10-mile queue behind an accident.
It's the immediacy of Boazman's information that's won her a lot of fans, and that, in turn, has meant even better travel news as drivers call up to report roadworks or accidents almost as soon as they have occurred.
Hundreds of messages Most people CM staff included would imagine there is a whole team involved in the travel news. But that's not the case most of the time it's Boazman alone who is responsible for listening to the often hundreds of messages on her office answerphone and then collating the information for her slots on four different Radio 2 programmes.
Having seen her at work, we can appreciate just how difficult it is to ensure traffic news is accurate at all times and how stressful it is to work under pressure.lhe police are not always as helpful as they might be, and travel news websites are often behind the times.That makes listener input Boazman's number one source of accurate, up-to-the minute information.
And she certainly gets plenty of info. On a Thursday or Friday, or if the weather is bad, the answerphone often goes non-stop throughout her six-hour spell on the airwaves Deciphering "hundreds and hundreds" of the often crackly and indistinct voices on the phone can be tricky, but Boazman is keen to recognise all callers' help. Drivers with nicknames ranging from Geordie Armani and Vulcan Bomber to Porky Pie and Wizard are key to the travel slot's success have met many of them.and I trust the information from them implicitly," she asserts. However, she points out that she checks any information from new sources before putting it out on air.
"1 also try to help listeners with alternative routes, rather than just saying that a motorway is blocked. You also have to make it interesting to engage listeners."
A key part of her job is editing information, fitting everything into her two-minute on-air slot. "I have to decide what the most important stuff is. Mostly I'll stick to reporting on motorways and A-roads, but sometimes if we don't use some information or get it wrong we'll get complaints" The day CM visited Broadcasting House, we saw just how quickly listeners react. After reporting an incident blocking a major road in London, we returned to the travel desk to find an answerphone message informing us that one lane of the road had been re-opened a valuable piece of information for the next bulletin.
But travel hasn't always been her metier;she started as an actress, but says she discovered early on that she was an "average to mediocre" performer. She then moved into TV, working on a current affairs programme at London We ekend Television, where one of her contemporaries and the tea boy was Greg Dyke, former director general of the BBC.
After a spell in television she decided to transfer her allegiance to radio and that's where she's stayed. After a spell with AA Roadwatch and some other media jobs, she sound moved to Greater London Radio, and then to BBC Radio 2 in 1998, when she became the station's first designated travel reporter.
It's a job she's passionate about — and she thinks others should share her enthusiasm. "Traffic reporting is often seen as a first job. People think it doesn't matter if they screw it up. and sometimes don't do the job justice. Travel information should be considered as important as the weather reports," she says.
It's the national approach to travel information that's made Radio 2 the favourite station for drivers —5Live and Classic FM are the only other stations providing national travel coverage. "It's really important for people who are, say, driving from Glasgow to London," she explains.
As a driver, Boazman says she understands people's frustration — and admits she's been known to get stuck in traffic jams herself. "If I am stuck in a jam. I'll call in to Radio 2 to let them know!
"I've done the job for about five years now and it's passed unbelievably quickly. I love this job — it's the best one I have ever had. I'm my own boss, and it's very satisfying to get a positive response from doing a public service. Saving people time and money gives me a great sense of satisfaction." •