Watch Out…

Well, three weeks of driving later and Mr. Bill had his driving assessment. He passed with flying colours and attained a good enough grade to allow him to apply for an advanced driving course at a later stage.

This means that if he decides to go into the traffic division he now has the first building block in place.

The next stage is to get out on the streets and start catching the bad guys.

He has been told that the best way to get the top brass to notice you, is to get lots of tickets in.. This means stopping dodgy looking vehicles and drivers and asking them to present their driving documentation, such as driving licence, MOT and Insurance.

The fact is that it is a legal requirement that all motorists produce this documentation
whenever requested by a Police Officer in uniform. Failure to produce said documentation is an offence and you can be summonsed for it.

However, if you do not have this documentation about your person, the nice police officer can give you a Home Office Road Traffic slip 01 – or HORTI. This is also known as ‘a producer’. This slip is then taken to a police station along with the relevant documentation and checked by the nice police officer behind the desk and if all documentation is correct, you can be on your way.

If you don’t produce your documents within 7 days, you get a nice letter from the police inviting you to attend court ☺

Mr. Bill is looking forward to stopping all those silly people who don’t wear seatbelts, or continue to use phones whilst driving and also put a few nice tickets on the windscreens of the twits who park in dangerous places.



He is also hoping that by reading the latest intelligence logs at the station, he will be able to recognise the naughty people operating within his area – especially whilst they are driving to/from their crimes. Many of these people don’t have insurance or tax anyway, and so it will be even better to stop them for the crime and then do them for driving illegally as well – double whammy!

2 weeks down, 1 to go...

The first two weeks of the traffic course have flown by, and on Friday it was assessment day. This meant having an instructor sit next to the drivers and judge them on their progress over the last two weeks. If the drivers pass, they are allowed to go on to the third week, which is the response part of the course - or driving under blue lights and sirens. Thankfully all passed the assessment and so next week, the first job of the day will be to stick all the police decals on the plain saloon cars that the students have been driving and then attach a magnetic blue flashing light to the top of the car. It will be interesting to see how differently people drive when they realise it is a police car behind them, compared to the last two weeks, where the cars have been 'unmarked'. The students have been told to expect the unexpected - some people don't realise that there is a police car behind them (even with the blue flashing lights, flashing headlights and wailing siren on), others suddenly realise that there is a police car trying to get past and become suicidal in their efforts to stop. Others try to be helpful and in the process of 'pulling over' create a blockage on the road in front of the police car. There is also the ‘effect’ on pedestrians, apparently many become like lemmings and try to cross the road before the speeding police car reaches them – often with much frustration being bestowed on the police driver as he slows to a snails pace to allow the said pedestrian to finish his ever-so-important journey across the road. Another effect of adding blue lights and siren, is that the students apparently get excited and forget all of the road training they have had over the last two weeks, and need to be brought back to earth by the instructors. Mr. Bill is really looking forward to next week and hopes that he can obtain a really good grade so it lines him up for a placement in the traffic division in the coming year.

I think it would be nice to spare a thought for the instructors as it must be one of the most scary jobs going – sitting in the passenger seat of a police car whilst the student police officer tries out his new found abilities for the first time.

Watch out Llanffuglen and surrounding counties – the boys in blue are coming!!

Independence and driving;

Well, it happened – after 8 weeks of tutorship, Mr. Bill has been declared ‘fit for independent patrol’. However, before he is allowed to hit the mean streets of Llanffuglen, on his own, there is one more training task he must complete… driving.
This has been the part of training that Mr. Bill has most looked forward to. Three weeks of driving around, being told by expert police drivers how to make his driving better.
At the end of the three weeks, the drivers will be told if they have made the grade to be allowed to drive in a ‘response’ situation – or to you and me – with the blue lights on and the siren wailing.
They will also be given a grade to show just how good a driver they are and whether the instructors think that the officers have what it takes to eventually be allowed to become traffic cops (if they choose to do this line of police work) – but they aren’t allowed to apply for that position until they have done at least 2 years ‘on-the-beat’.
For Mr. Bill this has meant going back to basics and remembering how to drive a car using two hands on the steering wheel at the ’10 to 2’ position and making sure that no elbows rest on the armrest and when turning into streets, the push-pull technique is used, rather than just letting the steering wheel find its own way back to the 12 o’clock position.
But it’s not all bad, in fact it has been great. Learning to drive the ‘police way’ is incredibly tiring, and yet at the same time great fun.
The first part is to learn a set dialogue that must be said at the start of every journey which allows the driver to demonstrate that he has done all the pre-checks on the car and that he is aware of all the controls and that the driver knows that the passengers are all strapped in safely.
Once moving, the instructor, who is sitting in the front passenger seat, keeps a watchful eye on the driver at all times. Telling the driver how to position themselves for every situation they find themselves on the road.
Once the instructor is happy that the driver understands the police driving system – the speeds are allowed to increase. This is the fun part.
Realising that Llanffuglen Police Force has many miles of long stretches of open country roads, and those that know of Mr. Bill’s enjoyment of driving – it comes as no surprise that after a few days of training, Mr. Bill has been getting to grips – or should I say that he has been testing the grip of the car and realizing its full cornering (and braking) potential.
The cars are standard family saloon type cars with no police markings – with a couple of modifications – namely hidden at the front and back of the car are the essential pieces of equipment that make these cars stand out from the crowd – yes, that’s right – the flashing blue lights and siren.
Mr. Bill has not been trained in using these pieces of equipment yet – that doesn’t happen until the third week of the course. However, the instructors are allowed to use them, and if whilst travelling at 85mph on a dual carriageway an unsuspecting boy racer decides to come up nice and close to the rear bumper of one of the training cars – it is a delight to see just how quickly the boy racer backs off once the little blue lights are flashed a couple of times – more than likely necessitating a change of underwear for the boy racer at the next services.
The cars have three student police officers and one instructor in them and all students take it in turns to drive for about an hour and then swap over – but not before they receive feedback from each other and the instructor. It may be that the officer has braked a little too hard, or accelerated a bit too quickly from the lights, or it could just be that the student has ‘missed an overtaking opportunity’ – yes as they learn to drive faster safely they are now being told to look for opportunities to overtake – and by the end of the second week they will be marked down if they do not take an overtaking opportunity that presented itself.
So it is now into the start of the second week – Mr. Bill wishes that the weeks were longer as he can’t remember enjoying himself so much at work for ages. He will be spending some time at the skid pan this week and then maybe some night time driving as well. But I am sure that whatever this week holds in store, Mr. Bill will be up for the challenge.

(Mrs Bill has been rather busy recently so this post was ghost written - thanks Mr Bill)