This morning moving up the A1 with live news on board at 01.30am there's flashing lights above indicating congestion and a rolling highways agency motor with DON'T PASS on the back.

I'm 3 cars off the front and he rolls past the A19 turn off just to stop 100 yards further on, get out and tell us the road ahead is closed.... so, I'm stuck along with others unable to go back and take an alternative route.... tosser...

Anyway there's flashing lights ahead, red, not blue.. and after about 10 minutes he comes back and tells us they are moving the blockage further up so its under the A61 junction... this takes another 30 minutes

Q? Do they have 'exercises' on the motorways at night cause the fact they moved it and the fact there was no blue lights makes me very suspicious indeed.

Steve

dunno but we'll probably hear about what happened on wikileaks tomorrow.

On a similar subject a few weeks back I had an Octavia VRS 18" from my boot coming round the motorway junction roundabout at Howden, hotly pursued by a police Mitsubishi EVO with lights ablaze. Now me being the law abiding citizen that I am, thinks that I may make Police Camera Action if I ram the Octavia in to the barrier and leave the bobby behind to arrest the scoundrels. Anyway not wishing to damage my car I then thought better of it only to be passed by the Octavia down the slip road, two guys in it wearing police uniforms!

Could of been interesting to say the least!

Anyway to answer your question I have seen the HA slow down traffic on a night as a practice but they didn't stop it. Just did a rolling road block.

Steve

Is it possible that there wasn't a plot to hold you up... but actually something in the road that another HA vehicle was dealing with?

^ like an accident perhaps? they happen on the roads sometimes

When i've seen police cars stopped on the side of the mway,they've often just got red lights showing to the rear I think

and are highway agency lights not yellow?

[Edited on 8/12/10 by blakep82]

quote:

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Originally posted by blakep82
^ like an accident perhaps? they happen on the roads sometimes

When i've seen police cars stopped on the side of the mway,they've often just got red lights showing to the rear I think

and are highway agency lights not yellow?

[Edited on 8/12/10 by blakep82]

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Sill!
Whatever the reason, its a bad bit of management (and bad luck) to stop 100 yards after an exit.
I can feel the seething and fuming from here

Andi

[Edited on 8/12/10 by Andi]

They are Highways Agency Traffic Officers. They have powers to stop and direct traffic but are not a "blue light" service. Part of their function is to replace the police motorway patrols of old to leave the police to focus on fighting crime (I feel a debate coming on...).

Traffic Officers will often create rolling blocks or similar to keep traffic moving slowly while incidents ahead are dealt with. If it's a straightforward accident with no death, serious injury or criminal offence committed then there is (quite rightly) no need for the police to attend the scene.

I understand Traffic Officers do not have the power to stop traffic except to deal with incidents and emergencies. However, the definition of an "incident" is fairly broad and open to some individual interpretation. Rest assured, they won't be doing it for fun or to deliberately piss people off.

Stationary police cars will usually display red flashing lights to the rear

I'm with the OP on this one, It was bad management to stop just after a turn off and would have made more sense to have let people know when they had a chance to get off the road. That said I probably would have got off at the first chance I had and looked for a way around (And have in the past spent some time looking for ways to cut between motorways because I was bored of being in traffic.