Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes (26 page)

One of the less dedicated monogamists on the unit found one day that his personal mug was missing. He was in a bad mood at the time, as his latest female conquest had seen the error of her ways and dumped him. This was not the way he liked to run his life, preferring to be the one calling the shots in his extra-marital activities. Denied his accustomed morning brew, he wrote in big letters on the board ‘Where is my mug?’ before stomping off to the gents down the corridor.

His day took a further downturn when he returned and found written beneath his question an answer.

It read ‘Gone back to her husband’.

Some traffic cars on day shifts were single-manned, but generally when numbers allowed they would be doubled up, and I was put in company with one of the older in service as his new traffic partner. There was a lot to learn in the first few weeks, translating my newly-acquired driving skills into the real world, learning how to deal safely and sensibly with accident scenes, and getting to grips with some of the equipment I was to use so much in the future.

The best piece of kit we had was an unmarked car, but during daytime the Inspector had reserved it for himself. There was some technical reason given for this, but the truth was that if he went to visit his girlfriend during the day in a
marked car it might cause problems. Particularly if his wife found out.

In the normal absence of the plain car, we still had use of the radar guns.

They were beautiful pieces of equipment, and quite simple to operate. Just switch on, press a button marked ‘32’ and see if the number ‘32’ came up in the display, then press a button marked ‘888’ and see if the number ‘888’ came up. The final test was to hit a tuning fork on the desk, and hold it in front of the gun. The frequency of the fork had to produce a reading of 60, and that meant the gun was ready for use. I had no idea how the things worked, something to do with Doppler effects and reflected beams, but work they most certainly did.

There were several radar guns in the office, some allocated to specific patrols, others taken at random. We were given carte blanche as to where we operated with them, and had a good effect on keeping the lid on speeders around the area, simply because we could pop up anywhere from one day to the next. A trick I was taught later in my service by a very experienced colleague was to go out in conjunction with another traffic man, each of us with radar, and set up about half a mile apart. The parting words to any speeder after issuing a ticket would always be ‘go carefully – you never know where the next speed trap may be’, followed by a radio call to one’s partner as the annoyed driver set off in defiant and aggressive mood, gathering speed once more.

Many a motorist was reduced to apoplectic rage by being caught less than a minute further down the road, and when they yelled,‘I’ve just had a ticket from another radar trap’ would get
the calm reply,‘well weren’t you warned that you never know where the next trap might be?’

There was plenty of scope for dealing with accidents. As a panda driver I tended to arrive late and wished I had been there sooner. As a traffic man I tended to arrive first and hope someone else got there soon, preferably the ambulance. I once said to an ambulance man how glad I was to see them as I usually spent several minutes trying to remember my first aid and waiting impatiently for them to arrive and show some expert knowledge. It was not reassuring when he told me that they felt exactly the same until they could unload their patients at hospital and let the doctors get to work.

I wondered how the doctors felt…

Life on traffic wasn’t restricted exclusively to road-related matters – we tended to float around and be on hand to back up the section if needed, and my first ‘blue light’ run was to one such job. It wasn’t really an emergency, but my ‘tutor’ called up for us to go to a report of a fatality at a container base, so if there was death in the title we thought it fair to make haste.

It was night, so even with the street lights the blue beacon on the Rover stood out well and for the first time I became aware of the odd effect of driving with a rotating light on top of the car – it was like sitting in the top of a lighthouse and then moving at high speed. Most disconcerting initially, but something you got used to and came to ignore.

Even though the roads were deserted I put the two tone horns on as well, just to get a feel of driving with
son et lumière
as it were. The whole process felt very conspicuous, but reassuringly so as the speeds went higher. As it was I stayed around 65 to 70 miles an hour in the 30 limit, getting used to this very high profile mode of travel. After a minute or so of travel with ‘blues and twos’ I saw a car come up to a junction ahead on my left, and there it stopped. I instinctively lifted off the throttle, but as I got closer I saw the man at the wheel look in my direction, and felt I had made eye contact. Reassured by this I reapplied throttle, at the same time as he pulled out into my path.

The Rover lurched hard right and then left as we rounded the geriatric fool, who gawped with a look of astonishment as we passed.

When I considered all the training I had been given to drive a Police car I found it amazing that so many people thought driving was an easy thing to do, when in truth it is far from it. Ask the average man in the street if he can use an electric lathe, and they will probably tell you it is a skill beyond them, but ask them if they can drive and you will get a reply on the lines of ‘of course I can’, as if it were both easy and a God-given right.

Soon after this near-miss we arrived at the industrial area where the job we had called up for was. It was an unlucky affair – a security man walking among piles of containers had not heard the gantry operating above him, and the gantry operator had not seen him due to the containers being piled three high in the surrounding area. The container weighed about 25 tons so it probably felt very little, and the security man came off very much the worse. The matter took a turn from tragedy to farce when the health and safety man expressed relief that the dead
man had been wearing his hard hat in accordance with site rules. He could have worn a suit of armour; the result would have been the same.

Another form, another sudden death, and back to work, and it wasn’t long before I had my first chase. The subject of the chase was a man who was known to have carried on driving despite being handed a very recent three year ban. He had two separate convictions for drink-driving, but was still using his car to get to work early in the morning. Towards the end of a night shift we positioned ourselves to cover the two exits from his road, and sure enough, out he came. Relatively few in his position will actually try to out-drive a traffic car, as the consequences of getting caught are normally much more severe after a chase than if you stop on request. But this man wanted to play. He was driving a big Ford Granada with an automatic gearbox, so all he had to do was press the accelerator and steer. I had to change my own gears, but mine was a newer car with more performance and better road holding. It was also the model I had driven most on my course, and I felt very much at home in it, and in accordance with the training I had checked the tyre pressures, oil level and other bits and pieces so had the inner peace of mind that it was set up as the manufacturer intended.

The disqualified driver put up a good fight, and I followed him along country lanes and main roads, in and out of town for a total of seventeen miles, all the while being given succinct pieces of advice from my co-pilot who was also working the radio, and subconsciously hearing my instructor’s voice adding hints and tips. I was surprised how calm I was able to remain, all
the while processing huge amounts of information as my eyes assessed and reassessed what was ahead. Around 5.30 in the morning we hurtled the wrong way up a one-way street into the heart of the city where I had started my career. During all the ups and downs of my early years, what would I have given to have been able to look into the future and see myself as I was now!

As with any chase, the potential for disaster was enormous, but this was fun! By this time the other driver was getting desperate as he had tried almost everything and I was still glued to his tail. His last effort was outright speed, but his car was running out of steam as mine came on song in the higher gears. I remember seeing something around 105 miles an hour on a road where during the day it was difficult to go much over 25, and after a high-speed tour of some back streets he made a wrong turn and went into a cul-de-sac, crashed into a parked car, and to my annoyance got out and ran. I don’t mind driving at speed, but I object strongly to being forced to run. Fortunately he was even less of a fitness enthusiast than me, and after a short distance of reluctant jogging by both of us, he stopped.

An almighty desire to beat the living daylights out of him was suppressed by a wave of common sense, deciding that to cause him any injury that could not be blamed on a crash would play into his hands at court, and his track record must surely point to a spell behind bars. It would be a shame to compromise this hope.

I did things by the book, and had to prepare all the paperwork before going off duty, so I eventually finished my night shift at one o’clock in the afternoon.

The driver went to court the following day, and just to show
they meant business the courts gave him, of all things,
another
three year ban. Given that his previous ban had only started two months before, the actual punishment was a net increase of just eight weeks on the disqualification.

I sometimes wondered why I bothered, but then people pay good money in theme parks for less fun than I had had that night.

The levels of concentration needed in a chase are fantastic, and this was illustrated to me a few years later when an old school friend (a successful one at that) got in touch with me and invited me to a Porsche owners’ track day at a race circuit.

My then traffic partner and I both went and were driven in turn as passengers round the track, tyres squealing, round bends and through chicanes, wearing crash helmets and secured by a five-point harness, hurtling past track marshals at intervals round the edge of the tarmac.

After the experience, interesting though it was, my Porsche-owning friend expressed mild surprise that both of us as passengers had not fallen silent as other of his guests tended to, but had carried on chatting normally despite going at speed round a racetrack.

We had to tell him that ultimately, not wishing to sound ungrateful, it was all a bit dull. It would have been much more exciting to do it as we did for a living, with houses, junctions, traffic coming the other way, a few half-blind pedestrians, some mothers with prams and young children, and maybe the odd stray dog to liven things up, and if you needed first aid just ring for an ambulance and wait ten minutes instead of having trackside medical facilities within 100 yards of any crash.

Not all traffic work was rushing about though. There were long periods without a call, and you were expected to fill the time by actively seeking out motoring offences and stopping car after car to see what turned up. In between times you could park up and do paperwork, but it was expected you would remain conspicuous as a visible deterrent to the would-be motoring offender or travelling criminal.

Seamus, the instructor I had had on my basic driving course, had been in just such a position some years earlier, and had parked on a main road near to a ‘pick your own strawberries’ place, which also had a stall laden with fruit if you wanted to buy it ready picked. The enterprising farmer who ran the business had further widened his scope for sales by selling strawberries by the bowl for consumption on the spot, but Seamus was being responsible that day and resisted the temptation, getting on with some writing in his car instead.

He was touched and surprised therefore when the farmer came across to him with a bowl of his finest produce and a spoon.

‘Can I tempt you to a bowl of strawberries, Constable?’

‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Seamus, taking the offering.

‘Would you like some cream on them as well?’ came the question.

‘Yes please,’ he replied, and the farmer added a generous amount of fresh double cream.

He put a couple of strawberries on the spoon and put them in his mouth. They were gorgeous. Many people show similar gratitude to the Police, and it does tend to make you feel appreciated and a bit humble. Seamus felt thus, but not for long.

‘That’s just a pound please,’ said the farmer, smiling gently.

‘Sorry?’ said Seamus through a mouthful of fruit that had just lost some of it sweetness.

‘A pound please,’ he repeated. ‘75 pence for the fruit, and 25 pence for the cream. It’s written on the price board over there.’

With one hand he indicated a prominent sign by the fruit stall, the other hand outstretched towards Seamus in anticipation of payment.

Seamus paid. He couldn’t help but admire the enterprising nature of the man, but he had been well and truly ‘had’.

The freedom to go out and manage my own time was a revelation for me – up to this point I had been used to having a Sergeant somewhere in the system at all hours, in one way or another monitoring (or ignoring) what you did. Now, as a traffic man, I was let loose with the expectation that I would justify my existence using my own motivation. Accidents in their various guises were not allocated as such, they were just things that were dealt with by whoever was nearest as they arose, and this random distribution meant we all had about the same number on the go from one month to the next. Sergeants appeared at the more serious bumps, but most of the time they would be stuck in the office with a lot of administrative stuff, and rarely worked beyond 10pm. The best way they had of seeing who was or wasn’t earning their place on traffic was by monitoring the ‘process book’. This was a large ledger into which you would enter details of all the tickets and associated paperwork as it was submitted for checking. All the supervision had to do was keep an eye on collar numbers, and if yours appeared only occasionally they would look for a reason why. It might be that you had been on leave, or bogged down with a couple of fatals,
which was easily justified, but it could be that for whatever reason you were lacking motivation, and this was easily identified and ‘addressed’. But regardless of how hard you worked, the process book was a millstone around all the PCs’ necks. Like an inanimate extension of supervisory intrusion it sat on a table which you had to walk past on the way into and out of the office, and while no supervisor would ever admit to it being a ‘league table’ of work, it was.