I patrol Britain’s longest motorway and you see the strangest sights – everyone tells us the same thing
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.
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.
Sian, 26, told BirminghamLive: “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.
“A couple of days ago on the M5 closure [there were] quite a few diversions and quite a few angry motorists. They were calling us names out the window, clapping their horns, we only shut it because we had to.
“At the end of the day we are just doing our jobs, I get that it is frustrating but we only close things if we have to.”
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 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.
Sian also revealed they do get a lot of abuse from angry drivers, saying the most common form was a four-word phrase.
She said: “The main one that we get is ‘you can’t park there’.
“We do get called bad names they just shout anything and everything.”
Sian has also been on the receiving end of sexist comments and slurs on a number of occasions.
She said: “I do get cat-called I just ignore it, people will get out and shout abuse they are frustrated because they have been sat there for a while.”
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.
Sian said: “There are quite a few instances where we have gone and it’s not their first time that [running out of petrol] has happened to them.”
Her advice to anyone using a motorway is clear: “You need to be prepared”.