Profiles

Inspector Tim Dale at the wheel!

You know the feeling: you're driving along the M62 or the M1 in West Yorkshire minding your own business when suddenly you spy a police car and feel the guilt flooding over you - even if you're driving well within the speed limit! "It's a strange job, this, sometimes, to think how people respond to the presence of a patrolling police vehicle," admits Inspector Tim Dale. "We're driving along in lane one now at 50 to 55 miles and hour and we've got this bubble around us of people behaving themselves. You don't see that in your own car!" Such is the strange working world of West Yorkshire's traffic cops, as BBC Radio Leeds' Steve Bailey discovered when he joined Tim for a day on West Yorkshire's busiest - and fastest - roads.

Knights of the road: Tim and Steve

Inspector Tim Dale is in charge of West Yorkshire Police's Motorway Unit, based just off Junction 41 on the M1 near Wakefield. Whenever you see one of the force's vehicles passing you on the motorway - or when you're passing one of them, if you're brave and within the speed limit! - then it's likely to have set off from there earlier in the day. Based there are 50 Pcs and ten sergeants all intent on making sure that the people travelling on the county's roads get from A to B within West Yorkshire safely. As Steve joins Tim, the Inspector explains it's already turning out to be a hectic one: "It's quite a busy morning so far, certainly on the western side of of the motorway. On the M62 around Huddersfield there've been two collisions up there, one of which was a slight injury. But they've both caused quite serious congestion and traffic problems."

Setting out with Steve safely in the passenger seat of one of the Motorway Unit's Range Rovers - facing a dashboard full of buttons and controls you certainly wouldn't normally see in a normal family car - he just has to ask Tim what all this equipment does. Tim explains: "As we're driving along now, we've got onboard digital video and VASCAR [Visual Average Speed Computer And Recorder] facilities. We're recording everything that happens to the front of us, everything that happens to the rear of us, out there on the road, and every conversation that's going on in the car. We've got speed measuring equipment so that we can detect and ascertain the speed of offending vehicles...We've also got a tracker system - the four aerials you'll spot on the roof - which will identify any stolen vehicle that's got a tracker system in it and will allow us to hone in on it. It's not beeping at the moment so thankfully there isn't one out there." That's a lot to take in and Tim's just describing the equipment that's visible! There's also a load of other stuff such as basic rescue equipment in case the police are the first at the scene of a major accident.

That dashboard in full!

Then, of course, there's the vehicle itself - the white and fluorescent yellow workhorse that keeps officers like Tim on the move. Our man Steve asks why this car is up to the task when others aren't: "It has the presence that you need when you're out there in lane three dealing with an incident," replies Tim Dale. "Safety's got to be paramount and it's necessary to have something you'll feel safe stood in front of. Additionally, this one's got 204,000 miles on the clock. We need a car which can stand the mileage that we do. As a unit, we do anything in the region of 800,000 miles a year. That's a colossal amount of mileage!"

In case of emergency...

Inevitably, the call comes in that there's been an incident which Tim needs to attend: "We've had an HGV go off the carriageway after a minor collision on the M62 which we're going to go and have a look at...Fortunately the driver's not seriously injured, but to actually shift it [the lorry] will cause major congestion on the motorway." He's not wrong, either. As Tim and Steve draw up on the hard shoulder and the rain pours down, Steve's taken aback by the scene - the truck lying on its side by the side of the road as traffic continues to speed by. Standing on the grass embankment surveying the scene, Tim says this is the frontline for the Motorway Unit: "You can see the dangers of working in this environment. We've got a big Highways Agency 'crash cushion' there with its flashing lights and its big sign. We've got two police vehicles here on the hard shoulder - both displaying flashing red lights. Yet people are still thundering down in bad weather at well in excess of 70-miles-an-hour. We've got trucks thundering past within inches of where we're trying to work and it's another recipe for disaster. That's why, if you're involved in a collision here, it can be such a dangerous place...It's not a place you'd want to be through choice."

Incident: Frontline work for the police

This is just one aspect - if the most visible - of the day-to-day job of the motorway police in West Yorkshire. Inspector Tim Dale explains that tackling what he calls 'antisocial driving' is one of the police's other main tasks: "Certainly the biggest cause of injuries and deaths on the motorways is people driving at inappropriate, excess speeds, people driving over the prescribed [drink-drive] limit, people who fail to wear their seatbelts and people who drive using their mobile phones. We're continually targeting people who do that..." And then, says Tim, there's the fact that West Yorkshire's motorways allow the county's criminals to make a fast getaway: "Criminals do use the motorways all the time. There's not that many burglars who catch the bus on their travels, for instance! If we've got a team of burglars who operate across the county then it's our role to try and collar them!"

Traffic thundering by on the M62

A long day travelling up and down the motorways of West Yorkshire is drawing to a close and as Tim drives our man Steve back to the Motorway Unit's base at Junction 41, he says that the county's drivers have a very odd relationship with the force on four wheels: "I think a lot of people have a healthy respect for a patrolling traffic car because they suspect that if they're misbehaving then they'll get 'done'. A lot of people feel guilty when they pass you, even though they're not doing anything wrong. People are apprehensive of a traffic cop driving along, but at the same time they're very grateful for us being there when they're in distress or in a situation where they're needing our assistance...Our arrival is welcomed by them. They see us then, I suppose, as the knights in shining armour rather than as the predator just waiting to 'do' them!"