Coning and Signing...

So when I arrive at an RTI the first thing I've got to take in to account is my own safety.. I stop my car at a pre-set and pre-specified distance away from the accident scene, this is for my own safety and yours if you are standing near your car in the lane of a live dual carriageway..
I then put on my yellow jacket and try to get out of the car without getting knocked down by the next car to come along and not see the shiny stripy police car covered in flashing blue & red lights that's entirely blocking a lane... and they swerve out of the way (despite having had well over 200 metres to change lanes based on the line of visibility in front of them)..

First things first, IS ANYONE INJURED? DOES ANYONE NEED AN AMBULANCE? check that, if nothing serious I start bunging out traffic cones around the scene of my accident whilst calling the control room for an Ambulance etc.. Reason for this is so that no one else becomes a needless casualty, specially me because I can't help anyone if I'm creamed by some ones Ford Galaxy or similar.

It's a dual carriageway so I have 6 - 8 cones to set out a 100 metre taper.. so I walk off to a 100 metre distance and start putting out cones from the edge of the carriageway to the line at the middle of the two lanes then the last cone or two between my car and the accident scene so that the fire truck or ambulance have a sterile area to pull in to..

What amazes me is that STILL even with a police car blocking a lane 50 metres from the accident (generally) and 100 metres of cones behind that and a clear view of the police car and cones for 100+ metres behind the accident and signs saying "POLICE SLOW" or "POLICE ACCIDENT" out another 50 - 100 metres behind this people STILL wait until the very last minute to merge out in to the other lane causing everyone else to brake hard or take evasive action, or for me to look up and think "OH CRAP" because running through my mind is the fact that someone is going to plough through all my cones, then my car, then me................. see a POLICE sign??? Please SLOW DOWN and LOOK at what is going on!!

WHY don't people read the road a little further than 50 metres in front of their bonnet?

Then when being waved out by another police officer they for some reason decide that means they should just STOP in the MIDDLE of the road bringing EVERYTHING to a halt. OMG how dangerous is that? I've seen it on so many occasions now that it scares me... even when passing through other counties I've been stuck behind someone who decided to do that..

Is it that when the blue lights flash drivers suddenly lose the ability to think? I don't think so because 99% of drivers do just fine and pass around the accident (rubbernecking as they go mostly) and then carry on in their daily lives.. but 1% seem to just lose the ability to pass by without scaring the life out of everyone standing inside of the cones.

Please, DON'T RUBBERNECK, Please MERGE OUT SOONER, Please, Please, Please, DO TAKE NOTICE OF WHAT IS GOING ON.. read the road, it's simpler.

I know however that even with all the precautions it's still one of the most dangerous places for me to be, or anyone else to be.. so for those IN AN ACCIDENT on any road, but most importantly on a dual carriageway, if you CAN get out of your car get out on the NEARSIDE closest to the grass on the side of the road and then STAND BACK AWAY FROM THE CARRIAGEWAY AND THE WRECKAGE!!
I had one person at an accident once say they were going to stay at the side of the car (nearest the LIVE CARRIAGEWAY) because of the animals in the car.. WHAT? NO.. MOVE AWAY FROM THE CAR AND THE ROAD!!
Please think about your own safety as well.. anything IN the car is going to stay there, even if there is someone stuck in the car they are safer there than YOU ARE standing BESIDE the car... so get off the road.

Oh well.. very next accident I go to will probably be exactly the same. I guess it's a problem with having a lot of dual carriageways passing through my patch in every direction. Single lane roads are great because we just shut them down but dual carriageways just scare me every time.

Roadblocks - what's the point in arguing with me about it?

I just love going to block off the road and deliberately inconvenience everyone who uses that road by telling them to take another way home because [insert inane reason here].

Actually no. I loathe blocking off roads. Specially big / busy ones because to be honest I don't like having every second motorist abuse the living crap out of me or people come up and tell me I'm some jumped up little N*zi or something like that. I hate it. But in the interests of the safety of the public at large and more importantly the safety of my colleagues kneeling in the middle of the road attempting to preserve the life of a knocked down pedestrian I will gladly block ANY road for as long as is necessary no matter how much of an inconvenience it is...

Why do the motorists using the road 'think' that I have blocked off the road? I don't know to be perfectly honest but I think they are 110% convinced I've done it to personally spite THEM! and to personally inconvenience THEM! and of course no one else, it is all about them!

None too long back I raced out on a Friday late shift at about 4 minutes past the starting point of my shift and about 30 minutes after peak hour had set in... I knew before I left the station that I wasn't the only unit being deployed but it was only lates turning out, day shift was going off duty. I know that the area car was going out along the most direct route to the accident scene. I yelled at the area car driver that I'd turn up on the other side of the accident and block the road. I then turned out and took the long drive on blues to the far side of the accident (it's about another 5 - 10 miles to get around all-be-it on bigger roads).

I arrived at the village where I needed to block the road. I know the area car had arrived at the scene and called "all services" which means that it's likely to be a Fatal RTI. A MoP had been hit by something fairly big and was dying in the middle of the road in the next village along.. so I prepared for a long wait and deployed what little resources I had available to me to assist with my roadblock. This involved a probationer and a local PCSO who just happened to be on my side of the accident scene and who came up to help out knowing that I would need it on arrival.

So I had set up my roadblock at the main intersection leaving the village (this is a large village - almost a small town) and I was re-directing traffic back up through another road in the village and back on to the main A road which runs around the back and which will get everyone where they need to go... But of course every second driver stops in the MIDDLE of the intersection to say "I just need to get through...." and they get told politely to drive on as they can't stop there... I've got a probationer with me who walks out and tells them to move then starts answering their questions thus exacerbating the problem. So after a few words of advice the the probationer stands back and waves people through then yells at the ones stopping and tells them to stop up the road and walk back. I eventually send them to walk up the lines of stopped traffic and start telling people that they will be diverted.

Some smart drivers think they can go through the little housing estate and come out half a mile behind me through the roadblock.. needless to say I've thought of that and I've got the local PCSO standing there sending them all back up to me where I smile as I let them back out in to the traffic mayhem to work it out again. The only people who get through the roadblock are those who can PROVE they live in the bit of the road I can see.. so as such live within the first half a mile of the closed road - because after that is a bit of open road before the next village and I'm not letting anyone up there at all.

Then we've got one numpty in a big black SUV (I think it was a stupid Porsche thing) who stops in the middle of the junction and starts to get out of his vehicle and of course brings all 4 roads to a halt!!! My blood pressure begins to rise as does the stress level as everyone tries to drive around him (they did this because the stupid SUV was blocking their view of the police officer directing traffic so they started to move by themselves because they didn't think it would hurt of course).

I manage to make him move a few feet and then he stops and begins abusing me saying "I only live just up there..>" pointing of course through my roadblock.

I very politely say "The road is closed sir. Sorry but you will need to move your vehicle" to which I receive a load of verbal abuse and the same "But I only live just up there..>" with the same pointing motion.

After about the third repeat of his statement and pointing and abuse I walk over to him leaving the probby to direct some traffic (I worry though he's not done that before on a junction/road THIS busy). I walk up to numpty and say "Just where is 'just up there'?" and the numpty starts off by saying "just up there" with nothing further than that! (Well that helped a lot didn't it..)

So with my stress levels rising I say "Where is 'just up there'?" (followed immediately by) "and please be a little more specific, 100 yards, half a mile, 4 miles?" and I try like hell not to sound overly sarcastic. He tells me it's "just the other side of the roundabout" with his very impertinent and impatient tone as he sits in this big shiny poor excuse for a vehicle - I know that the roundabout is the OTHER SIDE of the RTI and it's also quite a number of miles off.. So I remain as calm as I can while at this point about every third car is honking their horn and becoming more and more irate and I just want this idiot to leave... I've now got a queue of around 300 cars on the 4 roads coming to this junction!

I say "That's the other side of the blockage sir, you will have to drive around another way.." and he abuses me a bit more and says he will drive through. He then starts off by asking how to get around so I asked how long he'd lived there (apparently only 25 years and he didn't know another road home - idiot). By this point I've got a bit pissed off with his attitude, his abuse, and his disregard for anything other than himself, oh and of course his insistence that he be allowed through my roadblock which was obviously there just to annoy him, of course with lots of cars now blocking up everywhere that I can see I want him moved and say something vaguely along the lines of "Sir, I am sure that the person laying in the middle of the road dying would appreciate your driving through this road block and past him as he takes his last breath in the middle of the road... Drive on, follow the traffic and move out of the intersection.. Good day sir."

(While I was majorly pissed off I was of course still polite!)

I waited weeks to be hauled in to the Inspectors office for a chat about this incident but strangely it didn't happen.

Oh yeah, traffic turned up after a long while and while some of their units went to the accident scene another came and took over from me - thankfully!! and I went off and stood somewhere quiet for a few minutes just to calm down.

Of course I don't block off roads for the fun of it. It is ridiculous but a lot of motorists seem to feel that it's done just to annoy and inconvenience them. Of course it's not. We do it for YOUR safety and OUR safety. We know how much it inconveniences you so we don't like to do it for longer than is needed but please, have some patience, courtesy, and just keep moving in the direction you are being waved. Please, DO NOT block up the intersection to ask if the road is closed "OF COURSE IT IS CLOSED, THAT'S WHY I AM HERE!!!" And NEVER try to cut through a residential street to come out the other side of a police roadblock. We can't be everywhere but YOU could kill someone by doing that, the road is blocked for a VERY GOOD REASON and sometimes I cannot tell you why that is but believe me when I say it's best if you don't know right at that time...

It was the posts by various and sundry about Cordons that made me think of this particular roadblock. It's frustrating for all, remember however that for the one person standing in the middle of the intersection in a yellow jacket it's even more frustrating when you stop and stuff it all up or vent your frustrations on him/her - we are just trying to do our job as well so please just drive on, slowly and safely because of course everyone else is frustrated and confused as well...