Every year there are more than 10,000 vehicle collisions in Hampshire. A large number of the drivers make dangerous efforts to get away from the scene, usually because they have something to hide: being uninsured, unlicensed, drunk or worse. The traffic cops are determined to catch them and stop those who are on the road to destruction.
Britain's congested motorways are dangerous places; wall to wall traffic and high speed drivers are a deadly combination, and a lapse of judgement can mean the difference between life and death. In Cheshire the motorway cops are dealing with a high speed crash which has left the fast lane blocked to traffic. Meanwhile in Humberside a lorry on fire has left both lanes of the M180 impassable as traffic is brought to a standstill. Jamie Theakston narrates.
The traffic cops have an identity crisis on their hands as they come across crimes and accidents involving people who aren't who they claim to be, people who are claiming they are the victims of mistaken identity and others with no identification at all.
Britain's traffic cops are increasingly encountering criminals armed with guns and knives. As the 'arms race' escalates, a new weapon in the police's arsenal to tackle dangerous offenders, the taser, is used on the streets of Humberside for the first time.
A look at the challenges facing Britain's road police. With red tape and paperwork consuming considerable amounts of police time, police in Yorkshire have come up with a new way of showing their authority, by combining officers from four different forces in a one-off blitz on car thieves, drug dealers and criminals using the roads.
A look at the challenges facing Britain's road police. The heady mix of sunny days and open country roads in the East Riding of Yorkshire means one thing - bikers out to have fun. And for PC Glenn Dennis, a Suzuki-riding officer, it means another - stopping them breaking the law.
A look at the challenges facing Britain's road police. It's half term and the Humberside traffic cops have their hands full chasing kids, some as young as thirteen, who would normally be in school but instead are taking lessons in how to steal, crash and burn cars.
Documentary series about traffic police in Humberside, narrated by Jamie Theakston. The traffic cops come to the rescue of some of man's best friends and get to grips with some of their worst enemies - drunk drivers. Meanwhile, a raw recruit has the night of his life in an action packed introduction to Humberside's traffic department.
The traffic cops come across a binge-drinking driver who has the highest level of alcohol that they have ever seen, chase bike-riding youths involved in a smash and grab robbery, and rescuer two young ladies on a 'scooter from hell'.
Torrential rainfall in the Midlands has flooded the motorway network, bringing it to a grinding halt, just when the summer holiday season has begun in earnest. With the tailback of cars, vans and lorries stretching for more than 35 miles, thousands of motorists will be forced to spend a cold and uncomfortable night in their cars unless the motorway cops can get them moving again. As their search and rescue mission gets underway, however, the cops come across some unusual and illegal behaviour.
The Motorway Cops come face-to-face with their worst nightmare as they are called to detain two women who are caught walking on the M6 motorway. As the PCs arrive the women make a run for it, into the path of a 44 tonne lorry. The accident forces a total closure of the M6 leaving motorists stranded in a 15 mile traffic jam and the cops locked in a life or death battle to save the injured women. Further north on the M6, the Motorway Cops are also looking for walkers - illegal immigrants who have been dumped on motorway service areas by people traffickers. The PCs find them walking along the motorway hard shoulder, lost, penniless and confused. They're a danger to themselves and to motorists and, for the Motorway Cops, an unwelcome distraction which takes them from their main job of fighting crime.
The number of criminals using the motorways to travel to commit crime is on the increase and the motorway cops based in Birmingham are ideally placed to stop them travelling up and down the country. PC's Griffiths and Toal are involved in a high-speed chase which takes them into Birmingham city centre, and PC Richard Elliot is called to a lorry park off the M6 where a gang have been disturbed while attempting to steal the load from the back of a lorry. Also, more than 20 motorway cops, a dog team and the West Midlands Police helicopter are involved in an operation to stop a gang involved in a cash-in-transit robbery.
A raw recruit has the night of his life - not only catching a burglar in the act but also chasing down a runaway truck driver - during an action-packed introduction to Humberside's traffic department.
When a car stolen by joy-riders crashes in Hull city centre the traffic cops call in Oscar Nine Nine, the police chopper, to try to round up all the runners. Meanwhile, in nearby Grimsby, they are too late to save another stolen car from being torched.
Documentary series following the traffic police as they enforce the law on some of Britain's busiest and most dangerous roads. A speeding car has careered off the road and smashed, spectacularly, on to the roof of a house before coming to rest upside down. Its driver may have miraculously cheated death, but he's landed in a heap of trouble with the traffic cops as they suspect it's a case of road rage gone too far.
Documentary series following the traffic police as they enforce the law on some of Britain's busiest and most dangerous roads. The traffic cops come to the rescue of one of man's best friends when they find a poor poodle left in a parked car, as well as getting to grips with some of their worst enemies - drunk drivers.
The South Wales Traffic Cops are involved in a variety of late nigh car chases, crashes and deadly accidents. They are also facing a new side to car theft - creeper crooks, those who break into people's homes at night, and steal their car keys, and subsequently their cars.
The South Wales Traffic Cops' search for incriminating evidence turns up all sorts of hidden treasure: drug dealers' stashes that even a sniffer dog has trouble finding, an amorous couple in a bush, along with bad drivers with hidden secrets.
The South Wales Traffic Cops are at the scene of a head-on smash in a contra-flow of the M4, which has involved a group of partying youngsters in a chauffeur-driven limo. They also catch some wannabe 13-year old car thieves, and have to send in the dogs to stop an audacious night-time heist.
A routine no seatbelt stop turns into trouble in a car park for the traffic cops. After parking in a disabled bay in a supermarket, an awkward customer gets more than he bargained for when it turns out he is on the run from prison.
Documentary series following the traffic police as they enforce the law on some of Britain's busiest and most dangerous roads. The cops are called to an extraordinary hit-and-run incident in Cardiff. It was caught on camera, and when they see the video they cannot believe their eyes. On a quiet Sunday morning in Swansea, another pedestrian is shockingly run over and left for dead. The episode was also captured on CCTV but the footage doesn't answer the vital question: who was the driver?
The traffic cops in Cardiff get a little help from snoopers trying to call time on a suspected drink-driver, but it's the Rolling Stone lookalike motorist who gets the last laugh. Elsewhere in South Wales there are prying eyes of a different kind, CCTV cameras, which see lawbreakers at work.
Being a traffic cop often calls for patience and a sense of humour. On a dark and foggy night, crime-fighting duo 'Buzz' Lightfield and Darryl Hanks are on a special mission hunting for criminals in the remote countryside on the border between England and Wales. After some amusing close encounters, they finally catch sight of their prey.
When a man driving a large 4x4 is spotted on his mobile phone by the traffic cops, he refuses to pull over and instead leads them on a hair-raising pursuit through the backstreets of Swansea that ends in a nightmare. It is a case of road rage unlike any other, during which the pursuing patrol car is crushed and its driver lucky to escape with his life.
The traffic police in Sussex have an abundance of new technology at their fingertips but when a van is stolen from right outside its owner's house, the cops have to draw on all their old fashioned driving skills. Plus, while two ladies lost in a 'pea souper' in Pease Pottage call the cops for help, a suspicious object has been found in Horsham High Street, which could be a threat to national security.
Battle lines have been drawn up again in Hastings; Sussex's traffic cops are hot on the trail of one of Britain's youngest ever car criminals as he leads them on a chase around town, and they're met with hostility when they clamp down on motorists who think they are above the law.
It's a case of only fools and horses for Sussex's traffic cops when a motorist crashes into a rare American 'muscle' car and runs off. In another moment of madness, a fire in a field gets set in a pattern of a swastika. Meanwhile, a lorry load of thoroughbreds is stuck on the highway.
A dangerous police chase through the streets of Swansea in the middle of the afternoon ends in carnage; to the surprise of the traffic cops the driver pulled out of the wreckage of the crashed stolen car is a woman. Meanwhile, a game of cat and mouse ensues in the Welsh valleys, with PC Stanley Baxter having to break down community barriers - and break down doors - in search of his elusive prey.
Traffic police in Sussex have to catch a lorry driver whose dangerous driving has put people's lives at risk on a railway crossing. They are also called to deal with elderly drivers whose standard of driving has left them with the prospect of having their licences taken away, and they encounter a well-known celebrity with a dodgy number plate.
The traffic cops unveil a secret weapon in their fight against dangerous bikers intent on riding their luck on Sussex's open roads - an undercover motorbike equipped with video cameras and ridden by the police's own 'Stig'.
In Bedfordshire, traffic cops armed with 50,000 volt tasers are called in to make a difficult arrest; a lone traffic cop is set upon by a gang of youths in Luton town centre; and a desperate teenager leads cops on a hair-raising pursuit in a stolen car.
It is a case of right place, right time for the Bedfordshire traffic police when they pull over a motorist taking his kids to school, only to find illegal drugs in his car. And it is a case of wrong place, wrong time for a drunk driver who has chosen to go and do her shopping at a garage swarming with police officers.
In a crackdown on motorists breaking the Highway Code, the traffic cops in Bedfordshire have brought in a credit scheme where they get 'points for pulls'. Drivers using mobile phones, not wearing seat belts or having illegal number plates are all on their hit list. The reason for the crackdown is brought sharply into focus when a girl is seriously injured in a three-car pile-up, the disastrous consequence of a woman being on her phone.
In the dead of night, cops disarm a gang member by 'red dotting' him with the laser light from a new weapon in the police's arsenal, the Taser. Introduced to combat potentially dangerous offenders, the Taser is no longer just in the hands of specialist firearms officers; in Bedfordshire, the 50,000-volt stun gun is now standard issue for all the force's traffic cops.
The traffic cops are called out to assist with the horrific aftermath of a crash on the M1. A forty-tonne lorry has careered over the central reservation straight into oncoming traffic.
A reckless pursuit takes place on the streets of Luton and the car thief ends up attempting to escape by climbing through somebody's window in the middle of the night. Sam and Shona are called out following a bad crash along a country lane just outside of Luton.
A teenager leaps into a canal in a desperate bid to evade the police
An abandoned car is found smashed into a telegraph pole on the outskirts of Watford.
An 18-year-old girl's life threatening collision with a tree brings home the dangerous reality of driving when you've just passed your test. In Hertfordshire, the traffic cops go 'back to school' to teach students how to avoid the same thing happening to them. And a gravely injured cyclist is found on a dark dual carriageway, it looks like a case of hit and run
A woman is arrested for unleashing her Staffordshire bull terriers on a man
The police deal with a mystery death when a man's body is found in the undergrowth
The traffic cops come across a suspicious accident on an empty motorway slip road
A routine check on a busy street in Luton turns into a bloody fight for survival
The cops now have a new way of collecting evidence: headcams. In a drugs hotspot a dealer is faced with a police search, all caught on camera. The arrest of a suspected cannabis user leads to a search of his registered home address and a surprising find, a cannabis farm in the upstairs of the average-looking terraced house. A first-time offender in his wife's car speeds away from the cops. There's a tense high-speed pursuit through the back streets of Bradford before the driver dramatically overturns his car, leaving him hanging upside down and in need of medical attention. A young driver is seen driving home after a night out with friends. After being breath-tested for alcohol the driver discovers that he is just under the prescribed drink-drive limit and realises how close he came to losing his driving licence. In a hotel car park at dawn, a drunk driver is rudely woken up by the cops after sleeping in his father's car. He admits to having had a drink and as the cops retrieve his cigarettes they make an unexpected find - a small amount of drugs. Back at the station the driver blows over the drink-drive limit and admits to learning a valuable lesson. A wanted man is confronted in the street about a fraudulent car insurance policy. The man has been duped into buying a fraudulent policy, but the investigation leads to an admission of his former part-time criminal career.
The cops now have a new way of collecting evidence: headcams. A call comes in for the team to join in the hunt for a black car involved in an armed robbery, so the cops take up the trail of surveillance. In Bradford, a dangerous pursuit through the back streets leads to four men abandoning a car and running for it. A teenager is injured in a hit-and-run incident and the only clue is a shattered wing mirror left at the scene. A three-car collision leaves a baby covered in broken glass and the cops in a race against time to discover the cause. The cops are spun a web of lies but a hunch, and police fingerprint technology, reveals the truth about an illegal driver. And a lady is lucky to be alive when she overturns her car on her way to work after checking her mobile phone.
Wearing cameras that film their every move, Yorkshire's Regional Roads Crime Team is using headcams as a new tool to collect evidence. The cameras give the point-of-view of the police, offering a new perspective on the fight against crime. An illegal driver abandons his girlfriend in an attempted getaway on foot through a restaurant, there is traffic chaos on a dual carriageway and a one-on-one foot chase is caught on the headcams when a man on bail tries to evade the police.
A man who attempts to run from two patrolling officers in Grimsby only succeeds in leading the pair to a friend of his who is hiding Class A drugs. Elsewhere, a cannabis farm is discovered in a seemingly normal terraced house in Halifax, a routine stop in Doncaster leads to a teenager admitting she is on the run, and a chase involving one of Sheffield's most wanted men is caught on the headcams.
Documentary series following the traffic police as they enforce the law on some of Britain's busiest and most dangerous roads. In the fight against crime the latest weapon the cops have are headcams, tiny cameras which record everything Yorkshire's Regional Roads Crime Team see and allow officers to gather evidence as they work.
When winter's harsh weather strikes, North Yorkshire's traffic cops do battle against the elements as well as tackling criminals raiding its affluent countryside, across 3,200 square miles of some of the UK's most rural and unforgiving landscape. Policing the roads of North Yorkshire, England's largest county, often requires a wide range of skills. This episode follows officers from the North Yorkshire Road Policing Group as they hunt down a gang of thieves responsible for more than 30 violent burglaries on country homes and estates. As the bad weather takes hold, the traffic cops also deal with the aftermath of some life-threatening incidents, from a bad smash on a country crossroad to a lucky escape as a car veers off a bridge into a river 30 feet below. A lorry with toxic chemicals onboard causes mayhem on the A1 when its load catches fire, leaving the traffic cops no choice but to close the motorway during the evening rush hour.
In 2015, policing North Yorkshire's roads is all about identifying and intercepting criminals on the move. With a third of its crime committed by criminals living outside its borders, this county has many affluent rural areas where wealthy professionals - and their high-value properties - are regularly targeted by visiting criminal gangs from neighbouring areas. North Yorkshire's specialist road crime unit are determined to stop these villains in their tracks and, supported by intelligence staff monitoring the county's network of automatic number plate recognition cameras (ANPR), are able to track the movements of burglars, drug dealers and wanted criminals and bring them to justice. The team are alerted by intelligence staff to the movements of Scarborough drug dealer. Scrambling to get themselves in a position to intercept the suspect, the RCT spot him travelling from Leeds. When a simple shoplifting arrest turns nasty, RCT officers come under threat from a suspect who resents being caught by the cops. Attracting the attention of the cops by driving erratically, a nervous man is arrested for possession of Class B amphetamines after the car is searched. A wanted man who absconded from custody on his way to court for robbing an elderly lady is rearrested after a call comes in from a member of the public. ANPR Technology helps the RCT on a daily basis, and when they are not receiving information on the whereabouts of criminals, they are often alerted to criminal activities by a network of number plate reading cameras. ANPR alerts the RCT to a stolen car circulating in the York area. A short chase ensues, but the officers soon box and stop the car and arrest three suspects. Upon his arrest, the driver makes some surprising admissions...
Every year more than 250 people die on Britain's roads as a result of drink driving. In 2014, North Yorkshire Police arrested up to a thousand drivers for being above the legal alcohol limit, and with some of the highest rates of drink driving in the country, all too often North Yorkshire's traffic officers are faced with the tragic consequences of motorists driving under the influence. The traffic cops are on a mission to hunt down habitual drink drivers. When a driver loses control of his car on a rural road and dies at the scene of the accident, they have to investigate the final hours of the man's life prior to the crash to try to determine the cause. Habitual drink drivers are often reported to the police by concerned members of the public. When the police receive a tip-off, a Tadcaster traffic officer spots the suspect as he emerges from a pub. The man fails the roadside breath test, but it can't be used as evidence, and he has to be taken back to the police station to prove evidentially that he is over the limit. With delays to the process, the clock is ticking... An overloaded flat-bed transit van passes a Scarborough traffic officer on the busy A64, and a check on the driver and his load unearths a number of motoring offences. The driver is a chatty chancer but, unbeknownst to him, or so he says, his licence has been revoked for years. A disqualified driver's details are dispatched by the control room. He passes a police vehicle that attempts to pull him over, but to no avail - then, bizarrely, there is a lengthy car chase at 25mph. A driver leaving a pub spots a patrol car, and a five-minute car chase takes place repeatedly around a housing estate. When Harrogate traffic officers eventually stop the car, the driver tries to run away.
North Yorkshire is one of Britain's largest counties - with 6000 miles of road and just 60 traffic officers. The police here rely on specially trained call handlers and dispatchers in York's force control room to respond to up to 1000 emergency calls everyday. And, using a network of Automatic Number-Plate Recognition Cameras called ANPR, they help the officers track the movements of wanted criminals, and drivers who shouldn't be on the road. Controller Nia Russell is contacted by a member of the public, who has called the police to report two males acting suspiciously in his back yard. Nia dispatches the report to Harrogate Traffic Officers Paul Cording and Mark Mullins. It's a bitterly cold night and when the officers come across the males, it soon becomes apparent they are not criminals lurking in the dark, but just cold, hungry and a little lost. The men are from Eritrea, don't speak any English, and dealing with them takes the officers some considerable time. Much like the rest of the UK, North Yorkshire is covered by a network of strategically positioned Automatic Number-plate Recognition Cameras (ANPR). Supported by specially trained staff in York's force control room, North Yorkshire's dedicated Road Crime Team are able to intercept a team of shoplifters as the flee from the scene of the crime in their getaway car. Gale force winds and atrocious weather conditions challenge Scarborough traffic officers Paul Moon and Mark Gonella as they respond to a crash at a local beauty spot. A young driver with passengers overturns his car in an area renowned as an illegal racetrack for car enthusiasts. And, when a member of public brings a lost dog to the attention of Road Crime Team officers Mick Roffe and James Duffy, the officers' patience is put to the test when a poodle dog escapes their clutch. Meanwhile, in the control room the dogs' owner makes calls in to report her poodle missing. Eventually the officers manage to collar the dog and reunite it with
On the roads round one of the UK's drink driving hotspots, officers from the North Yorkshire Road Policing Group catch up with drivers who have had one too many, and all too often the traffic cops find themselves dealing with the consequences of the drunk and dangerous. Every year around 250 people die as a result of drink drive accidents on Britain's roads. In Harrogate, its closing time at the pubs and a female driver who is three times over the limit has ploughed into a parked car. Officers quickly arrest the driver but have concerns over a missing passenger who fled the scene of accident. In Selby, when a pensioner crashes into a line of parked cars, residents call the cops with concerns that the driver is too drunk to drive. In a village nestled amongst the North Yorkshire Moors the police hunt down a man who has taken a tractor on a joyride. On the A1 motorway, a young mother is caught speeding at 97 mph, her excuse is that her child needs a wee. And, when there's a bad smash on one of Yorkshire busiest roads, the A64, traffic cop John Kendall has to close the road and call in a crash investigator when it becomes clear that there are life threatening injuries.
North Yorkshire is one of the safest places in the UK, with some of the country's lowest crime rates, but still there are an average of 5,000 crimes reported across the county every month. Many involve criminals using the county's roads as an escape route. And, with 3,200 square miles to police North Yorkshire's Traffic cops face a constant battle to catch up with crooks on the move. This episode finds officers from North Yorkshire's specialist Road Crime Team 'boxing' a reported stolen car on the motorway, but it's not until they take the driver into custody that they discover what their suspect has really been up to. On the north east coast, the cops are high alert after a spate of violent bag snatches in Scarborough. And when the police are alerted to another attack, Traffic Cop Mark Gonella joins the manhunt. On the outskirts of Scarborough, a foiled attempt to steal a van leaves the police with a good description of the thief and an accomplice's car. The suspect's car is soon tracked down using Automatic Number Plate Recognition Cameras (ANPR), and Scarborough's Traffic Cops stop the suspects in his tracks. However, the man in car refuses to take responsibility for his actions, preferring to put the blame on society for turning him into a criminal. Later, Road Crime Team officers spot another suspect vehicle, this time however their suspect isn't so easy to tame and the officer's £40,000 unmarked car is rammed by the suspect's vehicle five times. And, when a rookie Traffic Cop is nearing the end of his solo night shift - a report of another theft tests his patience to the full. A stop check connects the occupants of 4x4 Jeep to the crime, but with four suspects under arrest, the driver takes his frustrations out on the rookie.
Drugs and drug driving have become a major challenge for North Yorkshire's traffic cops. Last year, police made nearly 200,000 drugs seizures in England and Wales. In North Yorkshire, seizures were at a ten-year high. In this episode, whilst North Yorkshire's specialist road crime team targets drug deals in transit, a full-scale investigation unfolds in the aftermath of a high-speed crash on one of the county's fast rural dual carriageways. It becomes clear that speed may not have been the only contributory factor to the crash, which resulted in the death of the driver. Dealing with the aftermath of the tragedy left behind by drivers too drugged to drive has become all part of the traffic cops' daily routine.
In 2014 there were more than 2,500 casualties as a result of accidents on North Yorkshire roads. Most of these were caused by driver error, and often by careless drivers or by those who shouldn't have even been on the road at all. This episode follows North Yorkshire's traffic officers as they deal with consequences of bad driving and catch out illegal drivers.
North Yorkshire's traffic cops police the largest county in England and Wales - 6,000 miles of some of Britain's most scenic, and most unforgiving, roads. They deal with among the highest number of serious collisions per person in the UK. This episode follows a major investigation in the aftermath of a collision that has left a young motorcyclist critically injured. The key question for the investigating officers is whether the driver who collided with the rider should have seen the biker before the accident occurred. With the tragic news that the rider has died, the driver faces charges of death by careless driving and the possibility of a prison sentence.
Over the last decade there has been an average of 20 deaths each year during police pursuits throughout the UK. This episode follows officers from the North Yorkshire Road Policing Group as they chase down career criminals, disqualified drivers and a desperate suspect who fails to stop for the police after a report of a shop theft. An early morning burglary involving a pair of career criminals forces the traffic cops into high-speed pursuit of a stolen car, and with its occupants desperate to evade capture, Tadcaster traffic officers enact a risky boxing tactic to bring the dangerous pursuit to an end. On the outskirts of York, a driver wanted in connection with a shop theft fails to stop for the police, and when she crashes whilst trying to get away from the pursuing officers, the traffic cops are called in to deal with the aftermath of the crash and investigate their colleagues. When a Selby officer spots a disqualified driver parking up outside an address, the traffic cops are placed on alert. After a short stakeout at the address, the disqualified driver returns to the car and soon realises the officers are on his tail. Another high-speed chase ensues, but this time the driver abandons the car. Not willing to let their man get away, the traffic cops call in a search team and a manhunt begins.
Britain's motorways are pretty safe but when high speed and large HGVs are involved and it all goes wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic. The Motorway Cops deal with the ever present danger these 44 tonne lorries can present to the ordinary motorist. When a car carrying a family with two kids is hit and spins off onto the hard shoulder, the cops fear the worst, but luckily the passengers are shaken but uninjured. Not far away another car ends thirty yards up the embankment after spinning off the road at speed. Near Spaghetti Junction PCs Jay Hussein and Martin Smith are trying to stop a stolen van which is causing chaos with the rush hour traffic. Five police cars are in hot pursuit but the thief evades all their traps until finally he's cornered and his luck runs out. Meanwhile, when PC Dal Nijjar pulls over another wanted van, he's shocked to discover an infant in the back who's not secured and has been bounced around, supported between some shopping bags. It's sheer luck the baby has not been injured but it's something Dal's ever-patient colleague, PC Andy Collins, has seen time and time again. At night, a lorry jack-knifes on an unlit section of the M6 and two cars have ploughed full-speed into the underside of its trailer. The roofs of both cars have been taken off in the impact and one man is dead. But, miraculously three others have survived. It's up to PCs Elliot, Bullard and Shail to find out if this was simply the hand of fate or if someone is to blame.
The Motorway Cops help stop a stolen lorry on the rampage in the city centre. Elsewhere it's guile which catches people who are economical with the truth.
