Stupidity.......

I have seen dubious driving from the 'Highway Officers' & funnily enough it was on the M60 near The Trafford Centre.

Nige

I have heard horror stories of some of these Muppets actually stopping people and issuing verbal warnings for offences. More worrying is, give it 6 months and they 'are' going to be given powers to 'Stop' motorists to deal with traffic offences. They are already dealing with minor RTA's in our area without police even turning up to a scene. They are going to be the community policing equivalent for the traffic side. Policing on the cheap in other words. God help us all!

(snip)

Possibly a rolling road block, to provide a bit of space for recovery of a vehicle and/or debris.

Very likely...... but 30mph, relying on yellow beacons that could have been any old Tom, Dick or Harry? That's not the way to do it.

Richard

Obstructing the Queen's highway? Thought there were laws agin that.

On or around Wed, 20 Dec 2006 08:37:32 +0000, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:

yeah, I was wondering about them, and what if any powers or authority they have.

Austin Shackles uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Wannabe bobbies? Road policing on the Cheap? Does the role need a Police officer?

You decide...

Damn I've watched too much day time TV today!

;-)

Lee D

not sure - but I do know I don't want to see surrogate p/Officers wandering the streets in search of some action.

William Tasso uttered summat worrerz funny about:

That would be the PCSO can of worms you speak of?

It's the future, I've seen it....

Lee D

could be - not really sure of the buzz-words. try to stick with stuff I know about ;)

ow

and you can still sleep at night?

ahh - seen your other posts today - perhaps sleep is now deprecated for Human Citizen v1.1

It's pretty clear that you don't need powers of arrest or training in high speed pursuits to sit behind an oversize load at 20mph as 'safety car'. The same can be applied to clearing up after minor shunts, patrolling the highways (checking condition etc, not policing driving). So tying up expensive resources who are trained in other things doesn't make much sense.

The bit that is screwed up IMHO is that these people look like Police Officers to the majority of people and therefore...

a) have the temptation to act like them and start 'policing' b) cause people to expect them to be able to do the things police do - e.g. arrest people, deal with traffic offences etc

So, instead of giving them white 4x4 with marmalade stripes why not make them bright orange like the RAC. And instead of calling them "Traffic Officer", which sounds like a copper, call them "Highways Agency". Which is what they are. Then we don't get the whole of the M6 driving at 69mph behind them in a 20 mile snake (which plod patrols rarely do as I believe they are instructed to drive much slower than that to prevent traffic stacking up).

I'd also love to believe that the coppers who were previously escorting wide loads and mopping up minor RTA's are now fighting crime, but I suspect that there has been no net increase in overall resources just a cost-saving for Gordon.

I knoiw a couple of PCSO's - degenerate wanker both of them. I know a good few bobbies, they all seem to actually give a f*ck about the state of this pool of shit we live in. One of my mates is a Bobby in Milton keynes & he was coming to stay for the weekend, he got asked by a highways officer to see his driving license, he told him to f*ck off & showed him his warrant card. It wouldf appear we have numpties 'inhj chargfe' of the motorways now, how long before the sad (£14,000 a year ffs) wankers are stopping for speeding & doing all manner of other stuff.

A copper for for a coppers job, no tin pot knobcheeses that are power crazy.

Dont you just love it when the batteries start going on your bluetooth keyboard!!!

agreed 100%

aye - it's a lesson that every network admin must learn - the sooner the better.

I've been asked many times to take users to task for their net use habits. The answer is always 'no' as I don't have management authority over those users. However, I'm more than happy to provide whatever tools will help the real management achieve their objectives.

/struggles & fails to find a way to bring this back on-topic - sorry.

Have to say if there was an incident then that is even more dangerous having them as flashing Orange lights I would just give a wide berth and pass, not even thinking about some sign on the back. I would think it was a wide/slow load or recovery truck.

& just to check any of us can say the same to the highwaymen even without a warrant card yeah? :) I don't think I would even stop for them really, though not sure how much trouble can be got in for that as well. I assume none as they have no magic powers.

Now as a started for 10 and ducking out after asking. can anyone actually tell me what a VOSA officer looks like uniform ?, vehicle, who has the power to stop you.

Dave

Ive been seeing a few vehicles labelled up as VOSA round here recently

I thought these people were "Highways Agency" not "VOSA".

Role description Kev

If you aren't driving a vehicle under an 'O' licence they've got sod all to say to you, Full Stop, AIUI...