M5

A MOTORWAY patrol officer has revealed some of the strangest sights she’s seen at work and says everyone tells them the same thing.

Sian Plant, based at the Bescot station on the M6, has revealed some of the eyebrow-raising scenes she has witnessed over the years.

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Two cows fell off the back of a lorry in August 2023 causing chaos on the M6Credit: SWNS

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Sian Plant says national patrol officers are often at the end of a lot of abuse from frustrated driversCredit: Linkedin

Her work is not just eye-opening but can also be dangerous and she’s sometimes at the end of abusive behaviour while carrying out her duties in the West Midlands^[1].

Sian, 26, told BirminghamLive^[2]: “Some people just don’t realise what job we actually do. We don’t put a lane closure out unless we really have to. To make it safe for other motorists.”

She revealed that just a few days ago the M5 was closed with diversions in place, along with some angry drivers who were calling the officers names and beeping their horns.

But she said they only close roads when they have to and ultimately they were just doing their jobs but added she understood why people get frustrated.

While working as a patrol officer for two years one of the strangest sights came when chaos on the M6 was triggered by a couple of cows falling out of an HGV^[3] in August last year.

Sian said: “A couple of cows that had fallen out of an HGV. A cow got dropped at junction 8 and further down at junction 10. We got the initial call of the cow in carriageway, we thought no it can’t be.

“For any animals on the network, we have to close both sides of the carriageway. The cow job was not one we were expecting.”

She revealed though it was the police who actually managed to find someone on the motorway with an empty trailer who kindly helped herd the cows up.

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Sian also revealed they do get a lot of abuse from angry drivers, saying the most common form was a four-word phrase.

The main one called out is ‘you can’t park there’.

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Although frustrated motorists do call out “anything and everything”.

Sian has also been on the receiving end of sexist comments and slurs on a number of occasions.

While she said she did get cat-called, she just ignored it, saying people call out abuse because they are frustrated having been sat in their cars for some time.

Shockingly, figures from the action group Think Respect reveal 60 per cent of all roadworkers and other people working on public highways get daily abuse.

VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ABUSE

In 2023, there were 2,307 reports of either verbal or physical abuse while workers were out on public highways doing their job.

Incidents included being threatened with a gun, a knife and a machete attack.

Sian revealed that the abuse often comes from drivers further down from the incident and who then only see the tail-end of the clean-up operation, rather than the most critical aspects.

One basic but surprisingly common issue she encounters are drivers who have simply run out of fuel in the middle of the motorway.

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The cows brought motorway drivers to a stand-stillCredit: SWNS

References

1. ^{^} West Midlands (www.thesun.ie)
2. ^{^} BirminghamLive (www.birminghammail.co.uk)
3. ^{^} cows falling out of an HGV (www.thesun.ie)