Crash, Bang, Wallop What a Picture!

The Crash
The crash could have been much worse if it had not been for the quick-thinking school-bus driver who saw the boy racer coming straight towards him, stopped the bus and told the children on board to sit down properly. The driver of the car was not badly hurt but he is in big trouble with his Mum and Dad.



The Bang
This was the noise this van made when an electrical problem caused it to burst into flames. It was fortuitous Mr Bill and his tutor had been test driving a BMW car on loan to the Police – it meant they could get to the incident within a very short space of time and had the opportunity to fully test the road traction. Again there were no injuries and the van driver had removed his precious cargo from the back of the van. The veridct on the BMW was that it was fantastic



The Wallop
This was what Mr Bill’s colleagues thought he was going to get when he went to see an abusive, belligerent drunk who was refusing to leave Llanffuglen Bus Station. It was (thankfully) not to be as when Mr Bill admonished Dave the Drunk for swearing and suggested he apologise: Dave did exactly that – in fact he asked Mr Bill if he should get down on one knee to do it. Mr Bill said it might show contrition; so to the amazement of all the other Police Officers watching, Dave got down on one knee and gave a coherent, if not completely heartfelt apology, to the surrounding people. The other Officers who had prior experience of Dave had expected to see Mr Bill required to put into practice his self-defence skills and were probably looking forward to a bit of a scrap.

So today was the end of Mr Bill’s time on traffic and cream cakes were enjoyed by all.

The Bog of Eternal Stench

Judging by the clinging stink of Nigel this must be where he lives. Nigel is one of the Llanffuglen drunks and Mr Bill has met him several times recently. Earlier in the week they had to pick him up out of the gutter after a well-meaning member of the public was concerned and dialled 999. Later Mr Bill found him again when Nigel had fallen off a bench and this time he was hurt with blood dripping from a nasty cut on his nose so an ambulance was called and the paramedics very reluctantly agreed to take him to hospital. Mr Bill and his tutor assisted with lifting Nigel into the ambulance – and he is no feather weight. He also has the most appalling odour; Mr Bill said it is the worst smell he has ever experienced. The hospital patched Nigel up, gave him a power washing, some clean clothes and left him to have a sleep; unfortunately when they woke him to check his vitals he was not pleased and after some verbal abuse he departed back to the town. Today Mr Bill had a call a drunk was refusing to leave a local grocery shop; it was none other than Nigel again. He was not happy the staff refused to sell him any alcohol. They were also keen to have him leave as he was again stinking.

From what Mr Bill said stinking probably only begins to describe the nasal experience that is Nigel.

Police Car Convention

At least that is what it would have looked like yesterday as 24 assorted Police vehicles were gathered: dog vans, ARVs (Armed Response Vehicles), Police cars and vans. There had been an incident in a particular community and, since the Police have had trouble here before, they knew things could kick off in a big way. So they went in, if not all guns blazing, at least all guns loaded, Tazars charged and PAVA spray at the ready. Mr Bill said he felt reassured by the heavy Police presence, which as it turned out was not required to take any direct action.
Mr Bill said it was amazing to see the effect a sudden burst of adrenaline has on people; colleagues who had prior to the call-out felt a bit under the weather were suddenly ready for anything. Mr Bill said he felt confident that they would all have leapt in to help if any colleague had encountered any awkward customers.
I might be mistaken but from what Mr Bill recounted to me it would appear some of the officers were probably a little disappointed not to see some ‘action’ - I am sure you who know Mr Bill will realise he was not one of those officers.

Today Mr Bill’s tutor, who loves being a traffic cop, is hoping to get a good dose of traffic policing – he thinks they have been doing far too much crime this week as they have been covering general policing - a virus has left the station a bit short-staffed. They will be trawling the roads of Llanffuglen looking for traffic infringements. So if your tyres need replacing, your car lights are not all working, you have illegal chavy lights on your car, or you are still hung over from being out on the town drinking last night then you had better not be driving round here!

The Power

Mr Bill attended at a road accident today; it was not very serious but it caused major delays as it was on a dual carriageway. A woman in one car had pulled across traffic when she should have waited and a van had broadsided her. One nasty laceration later and Mr Bill said he knows he will be able to cope with viewing some gore anyway. It was a nasty cut requiring the skills of a surgeon to put all the bits of muscle, tendon and skin in the right places. The woman was sent off to hospital to be patched up.
Mr Bill’s tutor needed to take measurements, arrange the removal of the vehicles, sweep the road and clear up any debris so the road was partially closed and Mr Bill was required to divert the traffic round the accident, across a side turning, over a traffic island and then back onto the carriageway. The dual carriageway obviously has two lanes and as there was only room for one lane at a time to bypass the accident scene the drivers were required to queue and then take it in turns to go past. Most people do queue politely and do not try and squeeze past other cars to push in front but there are always those few… but today Mr Bill was All-Powerful and for those of you who have had the irritation of having someone sneak down the side of the politely queuing drivers and pull in at the front – well today Mr Bill made those rude, inconsiderate people wait their turn – much to the amusement and pleasure of the well-mannered drivers.
I don’t think the power will go to his head……..

Cops in Cars

Well Mr Bill passed the exam with flying colours so he was very happy. This meant he could start his two week placement in the Traffic Division with confidence.
He has been looking forward to this placement and has been hoping he would be paired up with an officer driving a Volvo, rather than a Galaxy or whatever other cars they drive. The reason for this is he wanted to get a taste of ‘real Traffic policing’ and you can only do that if you are driven around narrow country roads at 60mph in a high performance Volvo rather than losing traction at 45 mph in a standard police car. Happily for Mr Bill he has been out in the Volvo the last two evenings - but as it is a new car and the driver is not used to it he only took the corners at 50mph and the straights at 100mph as he does not want to push it yet – we wondered if this is the police version of ‘running in’.
Mr Bill has been busy both evenings; there was an accident involving a car driven by a very silly young man, a hedge and a stationary car; by some miracle the silly young man walked away unhurt, however, the cars were written off and the hedge isn’t doing too well either.
Later he attended the scene of an accident where a drunk young man had walked out into the oncoming traffic and been tossed ten feet up into the air, landing on the road but sustaining only a mild concussion. The poor driver was very shaken.
Mr Bill has been issuing HORT1s and VDRNs to people who have no documentation, broken lights, or dodgy number plates. (It is illegal to alter the spacing of letters and numbers on a personalised number plate)

Mr Bill is a little apprehensive about the gore that might be on display if there is a nasty accident – his partner was telling him in graphic detail about an incident he attended last week where a young man was killed – definitely a closed coffin funeral. It appears Mr Bill’s partner is slightly macabre and will often swap with his queasier colleagues to do the paperwork involved with viewing the injuries and writing the report on some of these accidents. I think that although Mr Bill is squeamish about seeing gore on screen, in real life he has always managed fine – he delivered a baby without fainting or vomiting (he even made bacon sarnies for the tardy ambulance men when they did eventually arrive)