Saturday 8 October 2011

Plastic Mororway Police

Since travelling on Britains motorways on a daily basis, I have come to a realisation that the 'Highway's Agency Traffic Officers' (HATOs) are actually causing more problems than they solve.



Yesterday on my way home from work I saw two identical incidents with two very different outcomes:

1. Car travelling northbound had a flat tyre and was parked on the hard shoulder (probably waiting for the AA to come and change it.... (that's a whole other blog post in the waiting))

2. Another car travelling northbound one junction back had a flat tyre and was parked on the hard shoulder (probab.... you get the picture)

One of these incidents had the effect of causing a mile long tail-back and the other one didn't.

The only difference between the two was the addition of a HATO! I'm not arrogant enough to think that I have all the answers and know exactly what happened in each incident but what it looked like was that it was just a case of a car getting a flat tyre and waiting for assistance.

Granted, people are stupid and seem to want to slow down to look.. but only, it seems, if there is a HATO with its flashing lights on!

I'm a believer that if there is a serious incident that HATOs can be of use but let's face it; if an incident is serious enough - then you'd need real police there!

1 comment:

  1. Hey Mat,

    Hope you're well - Thanks for your tweet last night, and thank you for re-reading the melting pot – I really appreciate it.

    There are two other books in the pipe-line - Looking to get one of them out in the next three months. In the meantime I’m blogging at:

    http://martincororan.wordpress.com

    If you’d like to post a cheeky review somewhere and tell all your friends don’t let me stop you!

    Regards,

    Martin

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