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I was collecting my Wife from work on Friday night, with my little lad. Driving along the A457 towards Oldbury, the road was empty and I had the Cruise Control switched on at a nice 30Mph (The Speed limit for that stretch of road).

After a few minutes, I was approached from behind by a White Mercedes Van, who quickly drove so close up behind me that I could literally see through the Grille of his Van !! He then started to flash his lights at me trying to "Force" me out of his way.

So, I ignored him, continued driving at the correct speed limit, while this muppet continued to harass me from behind. After a few minutes he dropped back a few yards, then pulled out, flooring his Van and started to pass, so I eased off to let him do so, to which he pulled in front of me then started to drive erratically, Accelerating away then slamming on his brakes in an attempt to do whatever he was trying to achieve in his own little fantasy of limited mental capacity. After at least a further two minutes of this, the imbecile then sped off, jumped a Red light, nearly hitting another car and disappeared off into the distance, hopefully into a Lampost, but I guess Society won't be that lucky.

Some people really need to stay off the Roads.

Saw a nice one on Sunday afternoon......

Came over the QEII bridge at Dartford and in to Kent. Quite a bit of traffic and as we emerged from the pay booths all the lanes of traffic had cars etc in them. In the outside lane heading for the M25 was a black hatchback car. As we proceeded along the road so another hatchback came flying along the road and really got close to the rear of the original hatchback. They drove along like this for a little way with the one behind getting closer and closer. Suddenly, blue lights started flashing in the rear window of the front hatchback. The tailgater suddenly fell back and just before both went on to the M25 he suddenly crossed all the lanes and disappeared down the A2, presumably so that he would not be pulled up when safe to do on the M25.

Yes, some people are amazing. Think that there should be a special police unit that when they pull up people like white van man they should lift up the van and place it in a mobile crusher - human rights would probably prevent the driver being required to remain inside which the crushing take place.

Years ago on the M1 northbound possibly around Milton Keynes we were driving along in the nearside lane when two sporty Astra's zoomed past in the outside lane. The red one at the back was way too close to the one in front and then my mate noticed it had blue fog lights.
Further up there were roadworks with only the outside lane functional and so far along on the hard shoulder were the two Astra's, the red one with his blue fog lights flashing.
As we were discussing how the police Astra appeared to have been goading the other we noticed the crumpled boot and crumpled bonnet.

Not as exciting as the time we had a gun pulled on us on the M1 just after we'd joined it from the M25.......

geesmith wrote:Not as exciting as the time we had a gun pulled on us on the M1 just after we'd joined it from the M25.......

Tell us more!

Reminds me of a time during my truck driving days, 20 odd years ago now

Had been in Europe for the week and was driving up the motorway back to Birmingham where I got the loads from. Fairly busy traffic, when suddenly three or four Police cars zoomed by all of us on the hard shoulder, pulled into the traffic, and set up a very slow rolling road block

Once they'd got this in place, the rear doors of all cars opened and Police marksmen hung out with what looked like automatic weapons trained on all the cars (and one lorry - me!) at the front! One of them made a hand signal to "stay back" which some old bloke misinterpreted as "come on". He went to try to pass them, and was cut off as he did so, with a copper leaping out and giving him a right old telling off

Two or three minutes later, three more Police cars, followed by an armoured articulated truck, followed by three more Police cars sped by on the hard shoulder. The original cars then whizzed off after them

Turned out later (after talking to other truckers) that this was a truck full of used banknotes on their way to be incinerated. Apparently happened weekly! Must have been a fortune worth to warrant all the protection!

Tell us more..

We joined the slow moving M1 from the M25 and made our way to the middle lane as a lot of traffic filters off up ahead. After a while I noted a large gap in the outside lane which was crawling faster than ours so I indicated and moved over. I realised the car that had been hanging back was now racing up behind us. He was quite angry and started blowing his horn. The various lanes were now at approximately the same speed so I ignored him.
He then forced his way into the middle lane and came alongside us and tried to get my attention. I glanced at him a couple of times but generally ignored him until my mate in the passenger seat said " he's saying summat and pointing at you". I glanced again and saw him ranting. I said something like "perhaps he should F off". My mate decided to pass this suggestion on using sign language. The guy went ballistic and we watched him leaning across to open his glove compartment (we were still crawling). He then produced this pistol with what appeared to be a silencer and started frantically winding his window.
Having 4 other young fellows in my care I chose to brake and indicating left I pulled in behind him. I was prepared to push him round if need be but mainly it was now harder for him to navigate and aim and we could see what he was doing.
We had on our dashboard one of those early mobile phones that resembled a car battery with a curly lead and handset. I lifted the handset and passed it to Sean asking him to call the police knowing the nutter would probably see it as he was craning round at regular intervals.
"What's their phone number?"
"Today, it's 999"
"What shall I tell them?"
By now the nutter had spotted the phone and had managed to start making a run for it so we decided we would call in the next services and report the incident there. We then spotted a Police Range Rover and pulling in behind him we flashed him down and on the hard shoulder I told him everything that had gone off. We gave a very comprehensive description of the car and the cops said they would be in touch.
Three weeks later I called Bedfordshire Police to ask if they had an update. I was surprised to find they had no record of the incident!

so we were right, he WAS a squaddy. (perhaps)

Our Health and Safety person got her lorry safety signs mixed up.
The pick up truck got pulled over by quite a few armed Police and the occupants were requested to leave the vehicle and not make any sudden movements.

I'm still waiting for you to tell us what the signs were. I have someone in mind.

If I remember right it was a combination of numbers and signs that related to explosives and ammunition.
She managed to get a combination that you can't transport in a flat bed uncovered truck and are required to tell the Police in advance.
At the time the IRA were busy blowing up parts of mainland UK so the Police were just a little bit wary.

Yep, that should do it.

..so I was travelling home from another job, fast asleep in the front passenger seat of a Rover 3.5. I woke up on the hard shoulder to find we were being stopped by the Police because a similar coloured Rover 3.5 had been used in an IRA bombing earlier that day.
They took the driver to their car to answer a few questions and he gave them all our names. As they checked my name he told me that my local Police replied with "known, not wanted". WTF? (probably 1990)

Sometime earlier I'd hitch hiked from Paris with my mates girlfriend and stopped off to visit some friends in Camberwell. The friends went out to get food and left us listening to the recent Lou Reed 'Berlin' album. In a very quiet passage in one of the tracks there was this almighty thud, in the distance, but you felt it as much as heard it. That was courtesy of the IRA. We instinctively knew. I just checked and it would have been the Houses of Parliament bomb I think due to the sash window being open (17th June 1974).

I think we made a large donation to the Police fund to help smooth over matters.
When the H&S Manager left to pursue her career elsewhere (not long after) the signs were given to here as a memento.

Another one in a similar vain.
Health and safety evacuation test with a fire and a few casualties and BA rescue needed.
Drill was carefully arranged and only the senior site team and the casualties knew it was a drill, less than 9 people knew
H&S manager confirmed the test was happening that day and the local fire station was aware, Retained fire service officers so they were going to come to site to assist.

So all going well so far the mock fires were lit and casualties took their positions.

Alarms start going off and the evacuations start with plumes of dark smoke visible.
Everybody accounted for except the casualties BA crew get kitted out and start the sweep inside the factory for possible casualties. At this stage most people unaware that this was a test.

Within a couple of minutes we start to hear and see the first of the emergency services arrive on full blues and twos. Still it’s a test and we have told the local fire bridgade so they decided to be flash.

Apparently the H&S manager had decided that he didn’t want to tell the security guards and didn’t want to loiter around the security office in case they got suspicious and thought it was a test.

The site has three big deep fat fryers with the smallest one holding 1.5 tonne of frying oil at 208C the site and was classified as a 7 tender site.

We can hear the blues and twos in the background and within 5 minutes the first of the emergency vehicles start arriving still none the wiser I’m thinking this is a good test.

It turns out the H&S Manager got to the security office just as the security guard was hanging up to report a fire with casualties to the emergency services.

We had 3 emergency incident co-ordinators diverted to site and two arrived.
7 fire tenders and a turntable where on route with full blues and twos going - 2 arrived
Support tenders where moved to replace those dispatched.
3 ambulances on route – two arrived.
Police helicopter diverted to assist with the causalities
In addition it went out on the local radio about an incident and made the local news.

Oh how the assistant chief constable laughed when he visited the site to follow up and was told it was a test.

The H&S Manager moved jobs not long after. A large donation to the emergency services. We also ran some emergency tests with the fire brigade on site. They also used the site to do some training drills.