Any Traffic Police here?

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jimti

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VW Golf
I am just wondering what the code of practice is when it comes to stopping vehicles on a hard shoulder. :dk:

This was posted on another forum I visit and it just seemed a bit wrong to me.
This was at about 4.15am, In my opinion this should never have been allowed, they should have either stopped him before he got on the motorway or used the "Follow me" sign to take him off the motorway to check his tacho.

Would this be standard practice?

I have no problem with the police checking him, but it is just plain dangerous to do it on a motorway and if this is allowed then something needs saying to change the rules :ban:



Had my first ever routine check last week, i saw the traffic cop sitting on the on ramp and 10 seconds later he blue lighted me onto the hard shoulder, i had only been left the yard some 40 mins and knew all my lights were working when i left, the side door was shut and the tail lift was secured, so i wondered what i had been pulled for.

i jump out cab and am greeted by the passenger traffic cop, and says he just wants to check my tacho, so he does sits in passgenger seat and downloads my card on the hard shoulder. i knew i was (far i was aware) legal but for some reason with a traffic cop sitting in your cab you always feel a bit nervours.... 15 mins later he had trawled through my digi card all 200 or so entries and said he was checking my mileages, im presuming to check i wasnt using magnets??
 
Seems like a sensible place to me, a hard shoulder, blues illuminated for approaching traffic.
If the PC had followed the driver onto an A or B road then the number of suitably safe places reduces and could / would cause congestion.
Nothing wrong in what the PC did in my opinion.
 
I thought the police were suposed to have a reason to pull you over or is that no longer the case.

The hard shoulder of a motorway is a very unsafe place to be imho and no one should be made to sit in their car on the hard shoulder of a motorway without very good reason in my vew.
 
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I have no problem with the police checking him, but it is just plain dangerous to do it on a motorway and if this is allowed then something needs saying to change the rules :ban:

They should leave the lorries to the VOSA patrols.
 
The hard shoulder of a motorway is a very unsafe place to be imho and no one should be made to sit in their car on the hard shoulder of a motorway without very good reason in my vew.

I agree.

When I see the "traffic cop's" programmes and the police lecture someone on the hard shoulder in the car for 15, minutes I find myself concentrating on the traffic flying by. Very Dangerous.
 
I've had them do it to me, leaving my wife and son remaining in my car on the hard shoulder of the motorway.

I was livid.
 
Sitting in the cab of a HGV on the hard shoulder, with a police car behind it, is probably as safe a place as you will get.

At 4.15am they have due reason to check for a tacho offence on driving hours and may have previous precedent on captures.

If you are innocent, and I have no reason to doubt you, then you should just accept it as part of being a professional driver. They are only trying to make your job safer by catching those that flout the rules.
 
Seems like a sensible place to me, a hard shoulder, blues illuminated for approaching traffic.
If the PC had followed the driver onto an A or B road then the number of suitably safe places reduces and could / would cause congestion.
Nothing wrong in what the PC did in my opinion.

there are many sites where the Police can take the truck off the motorway or even motorway service area's.
The blue lights are not going to stop a vehicle ploughing into the police car and truck on the hard shoulder a good example of lights not helping would be this crash caused partly though fatigue when a mini bus ran into a motorway maintenance vehicle with all it's light going.
The police pulled up the truck at 4.15 in the morning when fatigue would be likely among some road users.

A vehicle parked on the hard shoulder is more likely to be involved in a serious accident than one travelling in motorway traffic, according to research by the Highways Agency
source
That is why they recommend you get out of your vehicle and behind the barrier if you break down :doh:
 
Sitting in the cab of a HGV on the hard shoulder, with a police car behind it, is probably as safe a place as you will get.

At 4.15am they have due reason to check for a tacho offence on driving hours and may have previous precedent on captures.

If you are innocent, and I have no reason to doubt you, then you should just accept it as part of being a professional driver. They are only trying to make your job safer by catching those that flout the rules.

I was more concerned about other road users safety tbh
 
I used to work motorway recovery, M5 south, police contract.

I can tell you for a fact more people die on the hard shoulder than any other lane.

2 of our guys got killed, 1 of our guys killed someone else.
 
I'd imagine that a motorway would be pretty quiet at 4:15 am and , during the hours of darkness , you'd have to be blind to miss the blue (and red) strobes they were almost certainly using .

Certainly in Strathclyde , traffic cars stop with the vehicle angled nose in and wheels turned inwards so that , in the event of a shunt , the police car will move off to the side .

In the Fire Service , we use the 'fend off' position , normally placing the last pump facing diagonally out into the next lane from the one where the incident is , so that if something hits it , it will be deflected away from where our guys and others are working , and where casualties may be trapped - our vehicles tend to be a bit bigger and heavier than most other things however .

Any police officer can pull over any vehicle at any time and does not need a reason to do so - this was pointed out to us on our visit to the Road Policing Unit a year or so back .

If you feel uneasy about stopping on the hard shoulder , spare a thought for those of us who have to stop in the outside lane : a year or so back I arrived on the scene of a car that had hit the central barrier with the driver trapped inside ! I was passing the other way when I saw him and continued to the next junction of the two lane dual carriageway a couple of hundred yards on , then came down behind him and stopped in the outside lane and popped my magnetic blue light up onto the roof before summoning the emergency services . Where the guy had crashed was just after a left hand bend on the dual carriageway at the bottom of a long downhill straight , so I stopped on the apex of the bend where my car could be seen from a distance and hoped that no one would hit . Needless to say , I was well away from the car but , even then , the number of people who fail to see it until the last minute is AMAZING ; moreover , there was more than one idiot who moved into the inside lane to pass my car then returned to the outside lane to be blocked by the crashed car ( which was clearly visible from where my car was ) .

Even by the time we had two fire appliances , an ambulance and three or four police cars there , idiots were still failing to see what was in front of them :wallbash::wallbash::wallbash::wallbash::wallbash:
 
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I'd imagine that a motorway would be pretty quiet at 4:15 am and , during the hours of darkness , you'd have to be blind to miss the blue (and red) strobes they were almost certainly using .
The trouble with 4:15 am (it was day light) is some drivers seem to be half asleep.


Even by the time we had two fire appliances , an ambulance and three or four police cars there , idiots were still failing to see what was in front of them :wallbash::wallbash::wallbash::wallbash:
It just goes to show that a lot of drivers ARE BLIND :wallbash::wallbash::wallbash:

After all is said and done there was no reason why the police car couldn't have either stopped the truck before it entered the motorway network or pulled it off at the next slip road/service area/VOSA check station, this was just a routine check, not an emergency.
When VOSA check vehicles they will always get you to follow them to somewhere safe for you and other road users before stopping you.
 
Many years ago i used to drive artics for a living,good job,good pay,best trucks,only snag was the boss obviously hadn't heard of maximum driving hours regs ! We all used to dodge round that by putting a fresh tacho in with his name on it,but to this day iv never been able to work out how come the authorities never spotted that it meant that at times the boss was driving 5 lorries at once !
 
I was once pulled over on the M42 at about 18:00 hrs on a weekday evening for an illuminating lecture on number plates and letter spacing.

The Sargeant was also sitting on the slip road as I drove past him - he took off straight away and kept about 4 cars behind me for about a mile.

I wasn't speeding as I had clocked him move off. The car was special edition 205 1.9 Gti and somewhat distinctive and the plate came with the car. It was 20 years ago now but I wish I still had that car - what a hoot!.

Got a producer - all in order of course. Desk officer really couldn't give a toss.
 
Lol. I was stopped on the hard shoulder on the M5....I had to sit in the lovely traffic officers Volvo. Them seats are comfy in those BTW.

I was only doing 96mph.
 
The blue lights are not going to stop a vehicle ploughing into the police car and truck on the hard shoulder a good example of lights not helping would be this crash caused partly though fatigue when a mini bus ran into a motorway maintenance vehicle with all it's light going.

Lost a friend in that crash :(
 
Guidelines in this part of the world are 10 minutes max for a hard shoulder stop and full monty rear strobes must be used with the trafffic cars wheels turned to the hard shoulder.

Pontoneers post is spot on this is what we were told when we visited Stratchclyde & South Yorkshire traffic cops.
 
Guidelines in this part of the world are 10 minutes max for a hard shoulder stop and full monty rear strobes must be used with the trafffic cars wheels turned to the hard shoulder.

Pontoneers post is spot on this is what we were told when we visited Stratchclyde & South Yorkshire traffic cops.

My time with the lady of the night lasted somewhat longer;)
 
Mine was a fair bit longer too and the officer stopped in front of me leaving my wife and 3 year old son in my car at the mercy of passing traffic.

Statistically if you are stopped on the hard shoulder of a motorway for 30 minutes or more you are likely to be hit (according to the spin that my recent speed awareness lecturer was spouting).
 

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