Traffic Officer vehicles on the M1

Does anyone know what the score is with these things ?

They're big landrover style vehicles with high-vis markings on them.
They don't say police on the outside anywhere that I could see and I've
never really seen them pull anybody over (as opposed to the police
volvo's which are eternally parked infront of some poor sod).

Any ideas what they are for and who operates them ?

Does this help?

Yes. It does help, and the summary is that the traffic officers can't
do you for speeding, which is lovely, but that they do handle accidents
and debris in the road. They seem to be in regular contact with
motorway police though, so probably still worth rolling off to sane
speeds when passing them.

Bollocks. Loft a big'un.

Well obviously - but just keep it below 120 while passing them in a
mono-wheeled style.

They'll clearly appreciate your attempt to reduce wear and tear on the
roads by only using one wheel at a time[1].

Doubling the tyre load increases road wear EIGHT times
HTH etc

However, halving the tyre pressure would reduce the load, in the same
way that you crawl flat on thin ice and fold car back seats flat to
reduce weight.

Shirley you'd *double* the tyre pressure to reduce the size of the contact
point and, therefore, damage less of the road.

Nope, 8stone woman in stilletto heel makes more impact than 1/2 tonne
elephant foot

Chris D

[1] Ok, there's going to be a short period of time between the wheelie
and the stoppie for the J21 car-park effect, but that hardly counts,
especially if you're passing between a couple of lorries at the time -
it's not like anyone will see you there.

Aren't these the VoSPA things. Camera'd up, but not plod so they can't do
you.

It's my guess that although that may be the case today, things won't stay

Uh.... No. VoSpA and Highways Traffic are different beasts entirely
although I don't doubt the Highways chaps will accrue powers over time.

that way for long.

It's the new Highways Agency Traffic Patrols. They are taking over
responsibility from Traffic Plod for traffic flow management and dealing
with minor accidents etc.

There was one pulling over a truck the other day on the A3, it had a dot
matrix style messaghe on the roof
between 2 blue lights, stating Vehicle Check, Please pull in
No idea of their status