Any one got stuck in the hold up early this morning i passed the overturned caravan at 6am south bound yet after coming back up the 42 7hrs later the road was still blocked taking the ■■■■ how long does it take to drag a caravan of the motoway these highways agency guys need sacking 2 people could have easily just pulled the thing on to the hard shoulder it drives me MAD MAD MAD 
they are supposed to start using 3d scaninng equipment, guaranteed it still takes them over 7 hours.
all these cameras on the motorway and they still need to close it for 12+ hours
bubsy06:
they are supposed to start using 3d scaninng equipment, guaranteed it still takes them over 7 hours.
all these cameras on the motorway and they still need to close it for 12+ hours
On my way back up there where 7 highways guys 2 police cars and they where just standing there chating just for one poxy overturned cavavan i guess the family where all ok as the car was on the hard shoulder with the guys wife giving what looked like a right bollocking to him 
If no-one was injured then get a hiab in to lift the caravan, a recovery truck to remove the car if it is damaged and sweep the scene. Job done i would have thought? Personally i think certain recoveries take too long. I understand if there are injured parties involved or the possibility of a fatal but if it none of those just recover the vehicles and get it sorted.
One thing i have always thought that someone may be able to answer is, is there a time limit that the highways agency have to work to to clear an obstruction, be it a break down or accident?
This shows how much you guys know, the HA traffic officers cannot close a motorway without the authority of the police, however in most control rooms, the police and HA operators work side by side, so decisions are quickly made…
If there are injuries, no matter how slight (whiplash etc) then the Police are in charge of the scene, they decide what moves and what doesn’t, what lanes / carriageways are closed etc. The HA can’t even order the recovery unless the police are happy that they don’t want the vehicle for further investigation.
Recovery of vehicles that have overturned, is for the guys that are trained to do it, ie the recovery agents. Dragging an overturned caravan along the tarmac is likely to cause more problems as it would probably open up like a damaged flat-pack wardrobe spilling the contents all over, so would then be considerably more difficult to recover.
For any RTC that has any sort of injury, the police are in charge of all of it with the other emergency services responsible for their speciallist part.
The Fire Brigade are in charge of cutting people out of vehicles, rescuing from difficult locations, normally with Ambulance / paramedic overlooking the Patients welfare.
The Ambulance / paramedics are in charge of any patients aid, and may request assistance from any other attendee’s in removing the patient from the location, traffic management for other assistance, ie air ambulance.
The HA traffic officers are responsible for manning the lane / road closures, rearward relief, ie turning trapped traffic round and sending it reverse direction off at the previous sliproad, (you need enough manpower to do this) traffic management etc under the requests of the emergency services at scene. This free’s up the need for police officers / fire crew to do it, they can get on with their own job.
The ISU (Incident Support Unit) often a 16T truck with a crash cushion, but could just be a transit van as well. These will over-lay any small cones (police or HA traffic officers) with “tall boy” 1 metre high proper roadworks cones and full size “arrows”. They will also check and make note of any infrastructure damage caused by the incident for future repairs, calling out anyone that’s needed immediately if they can’t handle it, they also have the kit to cut through barriers etc if needed.
Once the injured party has been removed and into the ambulance, the Ambo & Fire will leave the scene (Note; Fire don’t attend or clean up fuel spills, the ISU will do that) The police however are still in charge! the HA traffic officers will still man the closures and listen to drivers whinging.
If the injuries were minor, once the injured parties had gone then the police would normally go also , handing the scene over to the HA traffic officers to organise recovery / clean up with the ISU etc. They are tasked to getting traffic moving as soon as it’s safe to do so.
If however, there are “Life changing injuries” then police accident investigation would attend (could already have been called) I’ve seen this take anything from 3 hours to 15 hours depending on the nature of the incident and the time of day. Meanwhile the HA traffic officers have very little say in what is closed or opened, they still man the closure.
ffs, it was some useless ■■■■■■ towing a wobble box on implied rights going to fast. It fell over. A few blokes to roll it back on to its wheels give the guy a slap on send them on there way. Should take no more than half hour and the includes a brew prior to rolling it back over.
Saaamon:
ffs, it was some useless ■■■■■■ towing a wobble box on implied rights going to fast. It fell over. A few blokes to roll it back on to its wheels give the guy a slap on send them on there way. Should take no more than half hour and the includes a brew prior to rolling it back over.
Yep! that looks about all that it should need (not!) i’d like to see you and “a few blokes” right a caravan even the smaller ones weigh in at ¾ ton.
Not to mention, that in this day and age of “blame someone else” the driver would then swear blind that the damage to his turtle shell would have been caused by the persons (Traffic Officers?) who righted it / dragged it to the H/S, and therefore try to sue the HA.
You can just imagine the court case;…
“You righted the caravan after it fell over did you?”
“Yes your honour”
“Did you use a proper vehicle fully equipped to do this?”
“No your Honour”
“Have you been trained in righting overturned vehicles etc?”
“No your Honour”
“Well what equipement did you use to right this caravan?”
“We just pushed it back over with the aid of a dozen members of the public”
" Do your HA procedures allow you to carry out such operations?"
“No your Honour”
“Mmmm! Whilst I understand that you were trying to clear passage for all the moaning drivers stuck in the queuing traffic, I find that your actions were both dangerous as you put members of the public in danger whilst assisting you to right the said caravan, you did it without the correct equipement and training to carry out such an operation, also everything that you’ve done was against your employers procedures, I therefore must find in favour of the driver, a fine of £xxxx”
So numpty driver claims off the HA for a new caravan, 12 members of the public claim for back injury (or worse if the thing came back wards as it was being pushed back over), and both traffic officers loose their jobs.
That’s why recovery is left to the recovery operators.
Lol i cant agrue with you, that really is how it would probably end up like.
The real Biffo:
Saaamon:
ffs, it was some useless ■■■■■■ towing a wobble box on implied rights going to fast. It fell over. A few blokes to roll it back on to its wheels give the guy a slap on send them on there way. Should take no more than half hour and the includes a brew prior to rolling it back over.Yep! that looks about all that it should need (not!) i’d like to see you and “a few blokes” right a caravan even the smaller ones weigh in at ¾ ton.
Not to mention, that in this day and age of “blame someone else” the driver would then swear blind that the damage to his turtle shell would have been caused by the persons (Traffic Officers?) who righted it / dragged it to the H/S, and therefore try to sue the HA.You can just imagine the court case;…
“You righted the caravan after it fell over did you?”
“Yes your honour”
“Did you use a proper vehicle fully equipped to do this?”
“No your Honour”
“Have you been trained in righting overturned vehicles etc?”
“No your Honour”
“Well what equipement did you use to right this caravan?”
“We just pushed it back over with the aid of a dozen members of the public”
" Do your HA procedures allow you to carry out such operations?"
“No your Honour”“Mmmm! Whilst I understand that you were trying to clear passage for all the moaning drivers stuck in the queuing traffic, I find that your actions were both dangerous as you put members of the public in danger whilst assisting you to right the said caravan, you did it without the correct equipement and training to carry out such an operation, also everything that you’ve done was against your employers procedures, I therefore must find in favour of the driver, a fine of £xxxx”
So numpty driver claims off the HA for a new caravan, 12 members of the public claim for back injury (or worse if the thing came back wards as it was being pushed back over), and both traffic officers loose their jobs.
That’s why recovery is left to the recovery operators.
I’d like to think that the conversation would go:
Judge: “Why did you push the caravan back over?”
“Well we felt that waiting for recovery would take too long, causing long delays; there were four big blokes there so we pushed it over again, got a rope on the chassis and attached it to a land rover and dragged the lot onto the hard shoulder whilst the cars at the front of the queue waited. We swept up the woodwork, some of which I put to good use on my allotment…”
Judge: “Excellent initiative there. Well done…”
If a bloke can apparently stab to death someone who comes into their shop weilding a machete and face no charges, I fail to see why a few blokes from the HA can’t shift some old rolled over dampervan on the M42. Remember biffo in this case it appears there were no injuries just a simple rollover so all that cobblers above shouldn’t have to apply…
If in doubt, just think: How would they do this abroad? Not with all this faffing about can’t do this/can’t do that etc. No offence intended mate but if HATO’s can’t even have authority to close a motorway (why shouldn’t they be able to??), what’s the point of them 
There really is too much bs where accidents occur; even serious accidents take stupid amounts of time to clear up/investigate. Say a lorry overturns and goes off down an embankment; driver is ok and no damage to road surface, so why is there often a lane coned off “for recovery purposes” when the recovery isn’t scheduled to start until much later? If a driver is stupid enough to go off the road leave the (zb)ing thing where it is until recovering it inconviences nobody but the owner/operator. Same for caravans-if the driver was daft enough to tip it over, throw the debris onto the grass and leave it until late at night to give them it back bollox to the owner they should’ve been more careful.
Simple answer.
Because they can.
bazza123:
. No offence intended mate but if HATO’s can’t even have authority to close a motorway (why shouldn’t they be able to??), what’s the point of them
Cos they are cheaper than road cones 
bazza123:
. No offence intended mate but if HATO’s can’t even have authority to close a motorway (why shouldn’t they be able to??), what’s the point of them
Actually my statement is “The official rule”, What normally happens if HATO arrive on scene first (usually 80% of incidents), they radio back the state of the incident/injuries etc and that the c/way requires closing, The police 99.99% of the time just give the nod ( I’ve left the 0.01% just in case!) or would just say, OK, close at Junction ##, then either another HATO patrol or a second police patrol (1st one goes to scene) would put a rolling block on, stop the traffic short of the junction, cone out the taper to make traffic go up the sliproad then direct the traffic off the c/way, as this is going on, the signs & signals would have been set / changed for the closure. If this was done by a police patrol, as soon as another HATO patrol arrived, the police would leave that job to them.
HATO’s are not an “Emergency service” they are there for “traffic management” so that the Emergency services can get on with their job without having to worry about it./ use valuable resources doing it.
The real Biffo:
bazza123:
. No offence intended mate but if HATO’s can’t even have authority to close a motorway (why shouldn’t they be able to??), what’s the point of themActually my statement is “The official rule”, What normally happens if HATO arrive on scene first (usually 80% of incidents), they radio back the state of the incident/injuries etc and that the c/way requires closing, The police 99.99% of the time just give the nod ( I’ve left the 0.01% just in case!) or would just say, OK, close at Junction ##, then either another HATO patrol or a second police patrol (1st one goes to scene) would put a rolling block on, stop the traffic short of the junction, cone out the taper to make traffic go up the sliproad then direct the traffic off the c/way, as this is going on, the signs & signals would have been set / changed for the closure. If this was done by a police patrol, as soon as another HATO patrol arrived, the police would leave that job to them.
HATO’s are not an “Emergency service” they are there for “traffic management” so that the Emergency services can get on with their job without having to worry about it./ use valuable resources doing it.
That sounds ok, but what could you do if there was say an obstruction in lane 2, like an exhaust pipe or even a body 
Could you put in an instant roadblock or would you have to wait for the polis?
Yeah, all valid points, but 7 hours for an overturned caravan? 
Whoever is responsible for closing part of the road for that long wants sacking. Or a new recovery company contracted if it was their fault.
i have on many occasions seen people riding in the caravan being towed ,mainly people from the travelling fraternity , this could well be the case ,and ended up in a fatality ,which would then result in a long closure
on a side note i have seen hatos attending accidents not on motorways ,the most recent was at Fleet the police and ambo were there and the hatos were blocking the road and directing people to continue on down the road
As we have assertained that this incident’s time-scale was probably out of HATOs control, can we change title to POLICE MUPPETS or RECOVERY MUPPETS please?? 
The real Biffo:
Saaamon:
ffs, it was some useless ■■■■■■ towing a wobble box on implied rights going to fast. It fell over. A few blokes to roll it back on to its wheels give the guy a slap on send them on there way. Should take no more than half hour and the includes a brew prior to rolling it back over.Yep! that looks about all that it should need (not!) i’d like to see you and “a few blokes” right a caravan even the smaller ones weigh in at ¾ ton.
Not to mention, that in this day and age of “blame someone else” the driver would then swear blind that the damage to his turtle shell would have been caused by the persons (Traffic Officers?) who righted it / dragged it to the H/S, and therefore try to sue the HA.You can just imagine the court case;…
“You righted the caravan after it fell over did you?”
“Yes your honour”
“Did you use a proper vehicle fully equipped to do this?”
“No your Honour”
“Have you been trained in righting overturned vehicles etc?”
“No your Honour”
“Well what equipement did you use to right this caravan?”
“We just pushed it back over with the aid of a dozen members of the public”
" Do your HA procedures allow you to carry out such operations?"
“No your Honour”“Mmmm! Whilst I understand that you were trying to clear passage for all the moaning drivers stuck in the queuing traffic, I find that your actions were both dangerous as you put members of the public in danger whilst assisting you to right the said caravan, you did it without the correct equipement and training to carry out such an operation, also everything that you’ve done was against your employers procedures, I therefore must find in favour of the driver, a fine of £xxxx”
So numpty driver claims off the HA for a new caravan, 12 members of the public claim for back injury (or worse if the thing came back wards as it was being pushed back over), and both traffic officers loose their jobs.
That’s why recovery is left to the recovery operators.
What a load of crap this is why this countrys road are in such a mess if this is what a H A person thinks when they attend a seen then they should not be in the job just get stuck in clear the road whatever the means and dont worry about joe bloggs cavavan is in bits anyway its all H S E ■■■■■■■■
HATO’s can stop or redirect traffic, either with lane closures or rolling blocks and bringing to a halt or whatever is required, I was just making a point that “officially” only the police can close a road, in practice it gets done if necessary the decision is done very quickly and HATO’s would close it.
In certain parts of the UK, HATO’s patrol / attend incidents on trunk roads that belong to the HA just like on the motorways.
On any other road that doesn’t come under the HA network, then 2 scenarios may require them to deal.
- if whilst off network, they’d come across an incident that needs to be instantly dealt with, they would start to deal with it, but would radio in the details etc which are then passed to the police (& whoever else is required, ambo, fire etc) the police would confirm that they’re happy for the HATO to continue to deal until they arrive. This is to confirm that HATO is dealing under the authority of the police (HATO only has powers on HA roads)
Or - If their assistance is requested by a police force. This can be for numerous reasons, ie. during the winter months, HATO’s assisted various police forces where drivers were stranded due to weather conditions. there are loads of other times but I’ll not go into them now. for this type of request, the duty HA manager of that region must authorise their use “off network.”
The real Biffo:
HATO’s can stop or redirect traffic, either with lane closures or rolling blocks and bringing to a halt or whatever is required, I was just making a point that “officially” only the police can close a road, in practice it gets done if necessary the decision is done very quickly and HATO’s would close it.
In certain parts of the UK, HATO’s patrol / attend incidents on trunk roads that belong to the HA just like on the motorways.
On any other road that doesn’t come under the HA network, then 2 scenarios may require them to deal.
- if whilst off network, they’d come across an incident that needs to be instantly dealt with, they would start to deal with it, but would radio in the details etc which are then passed to the police (& whoever else is required, ambo, fire etc) the police would confirm that they’re happy for the HATO to continue to deal until they arrive. This is to confirm that HATO is dealing under the authority of the police (HATO only has powers on HA roads)
Or- If their assistance is requested by a police force. This can be for numerous reasons, ie. during the winter months, HATO’s assisted various police forces where drivers were stranded due to weather conditions. there are loads of other times but I’ll not go into them now. for this type of request, the duty HA manager of that region must authorise their use “off network.”
blah blah blah get a grip man its all ■■■■■■■■