Keeping the Show on the Road The Motorway: Life in the Fast Lane

232 miles of road, carrying over 40 million vehicles a year.

The M6 is the longest

and one of the busiest motorways in Britain.

24/7, 365, the M6 is solid every day of the year.

Outside Birmingham it meets four other motorways,

and keeping them running is a constant battle for time and resources.

There are 101 different jobs on this motorway,

yet not one motorist is aware of what we do.

A hidden army of men and women work day and night...

Have you ever lay down on the M6? I have.

And I've played football on the M25! HE LAUGHS

..whatever the weather.

On the M5 you'll find your money, on the M50 you'll find the porn.

Every day they set out to control the chaos...

Wait there! Jesus. HORN SOUNDS

..and to help us when things go wrong...

2-1 can I have an ambo, please?

..trying, at all costs,

to keep Britain on the move.

Oh, God, please! Oh, I think my tyre's blown.

They should call it the MAD6 instead of the M6!

Hello, Highways Agency. Have you broken down?

The regional control centre in Birmingham is the eyes and ears

of the Highways Agency in the West Midlands.

We've got a pedestrian walking up the central reservation.

What's that car up there?

But managing who or what travels on the roads is far from predictable.

Definitely got two pedestrians on the toll.

-They're on skateboards.

-On skateboards, yeah. 1-3-3-5.

That's the first time I've seen people on skateboards.

Cyclists, yes. Joggers, yes. Skateboards. It takes all sorts.

It does surprise you, the type of incidents you get.

People having picnics on the side of the road

and I've had people having naughties in cars when they're on camera.

Yeah, we've had a report of a horse either near the carriageway

or on the carriageway.

Had a quick scan through the cameras,

nothing obvious at the moment.

The police have found the horse close to junction four.

Up on the M6, up in by Keele services,

we often get reports of suicidal horses.

There's a bridge which connects two farmers' fields

and the horses actually stop and look at the traffic as they go past,

and you'd be surprised at the number of 999 calls they actually get

with them saying that they think the horse is going to jump.

5-4. You'll find the debris now. It's just at lane two, lane three.

Here staff oversee 500 miles of road and six different motorways,

including one of Britain's busiest, the M6.

So, we've got here the bottom of the M5 and the M50,

bottom of the M40 and the M1.

I'd say the M6 is probably the busiest for multiple incidents.

But the M5 can be just as bad as well,

and it depends on the time of year as well.

Because obviously the M5 gets all the caravans in the summer.

You can't really predict it.

You can't say, "It's always there," because it's not.

And they're like children! They've all got their own personalities.

The most unpredictable challenge that faces the motorway

and the people that run it is the Great British weather.

You will get incidents, you'll get accidents,

you'll get members of the public not driving to the right road conditions

and it means our workload doubles, trebles, quadruples.

I hate rain. Oh, gosh.

The wind, I hate the wind.

And fog, no. Wouldn't even come on in fog.

-Do you panic in the rain?

-If you're driving, yeah.

When it's icy, you've got to be really careful when you're driving.

-You have to drive really slow.

-Or just not go out.

It's getting a bit windy down here.

Is it a bit more open, do you think? We're over no bridges.

Worst nightmare! Bridges!

I don't know why I grip the steering wheel harder.

More control! Like on an Alton Towers ride.

Waiting for it to kick off now.

In the regional control centre,

a freak hail storm has hit the West Midlands.

Reports of a collision. Two vehicles, Audi and a Mini.

Two RTCs, two RTCs.

There's two cars in lane three and there's four on the hard shoulder.

Every year there are more than 250,000 road traffic collisions,

also known as RTCs, on Britain's major roads.

RADIO: The driver said there's no injury, his wife is pregnant

and they have got a small child. Can you get the ambulance?

Oh, and here's the rain. Marvellous(!)

-They said it was hail storming, isn't it?

-It's all a bit mad.

It's reported as a non-injury RTC,

however because the lady's obviously heavily pregnant,

my colleague that arrived first on scene has called the ambulance purely as a precaution.

If you look to see where the tyres have gone,

they've skidded in lane one, just by where the ambulance is.

Tyre treads have actually come up to the barrier here.

It's obviously hit the side and that's what caused it to roll, causing the damage.

As you can see from here.

Honestly, all this weather's actually occurred in five minutes.

Obviously, this is the Great British weather.

But unfortunately it is very, very slippy underfoot.

But as you can see, people are still driving above the speed limit.

Planning for the effects of winter weather on Britain's roads

is one of the key jobs of the Highways Agency.

Weather chaos, snow and arctic winds

bring large parts of Britain to a standstill.

Thousands of motorists are stuck in their cars.

Roads and trains are badly disrupted.

On the 31st January 2003,

a weather event known as White Friday changed everything.

Heavy snowstorms trapped drivers on the M11 for 18 hours,

forcing them to sleep in their cars.

There's been people, elderly people and children, possibly babies,

stuck on the roads around here since four o'clock yesterday afternoon,

which I find, in the 21st century, quite unbelievable.

Well, I'd like to start, if I may,

by apologising to those people that have had to put up

with these atrocious conditions, stuck in vehicles for hours on end.

That is just not good enough.

I am not prepared to let this sort of situation happen again.

As a result of White Friday,

the Highways Agency launched a new team of traffic officers

to deal with incidents and react to weather events.

Martin Studt was one of the original Highways Agency traffic officers.

He knows only too well what is at stake

when winter preparation goes wrong.

There was a lot of criticism, especially in Parliament,

for what was thought to be catastrophic failings

of the Highways Agency at the time.

It feels like people are waiting for you to get it wrong.

There is a huge amount of interest across the winter period

and it feels like the lions are poised to grab you

because you haven't kept a road open.

This winter began on a Wednesday in November,

with a message from the Roads Minister,

the man in charge of our motorways.

It's that time of year again,

we're about to be braced with a big winter coming up, aren't we?

Yes, well, I gave evidence to the Transport Select Committee

three or four weeks ago on winter resilience and I assured them

that we had plenty of gritters, that we have plenty of salt.

We have better-than-ever forecasting,

in terms of when it's going to be cold,

and therefore I think we're in a better position

than we've ever been before to take on the elements when we have bad weather,

which I'm sure we will have this winter.

The media's prediction - they don't always get it right, shall we say!

I mean, here's, for instance, the Daily Express.

"Siberian snow to hit Britain."

This was forecast for this week, according to this.

There you go. I don't see no snow out there.

Not much snow out there at all, is there, really?

Winter maintenance manager Mark Jones is in charge

of deploying the gritters.

Gritting is a chance for some overtime for the maintenance teams,

earning a stand-by fee whether they grit or not.

They stay in the luxury of their home with their feet up,

getting £20, sipping cups of teas,

waiting for the weather, as you can see.

A lot of times during the winter it's lovely and sunny

so they just get all this money in their back pocket, stock it all up.

He's on stand-by.

We don't know what he does, but he's always standing by.

See? Can't even answer that one cos he knows it's the truth!

Keeping the M6 and surrounding motorways safe in winter

falls to severe weather manager Richard Hancocks.

In winter, whenever we travel anywhere, we have to play games,

obviously, like all families do.

Our games tend to be around spotting things.

Sadly, whenever I'm doing it it's spot the salt barn,

spot the weather station, spot the gritter.

Daddy gets very, very boring.

This country is full of individuals who get very, very excited

by the weather so when we get the weather wrong, they love it.

"Oh, we're going to get snow." Nothing comes,

"Oh, you said snow, we didn't see a flake!"

We get that all the time.

We have to err on the side of caution and then we get moaned at

cos we got it wrong, and equally, we get moaned at because we will say

it's not going to be very severe, the weather's going to be fine,

and all of a sudden the snow arrives and causes a little bit of chaos.

The Highways Agency in the West Midlands invests an average

of £1.2 million in 35,000 tonnes of salt during the winter.

It's chalk and cheese, unfortunately.

People often say, "If you didn't spend a million pounds on that

"you could have improved this roundabout here,

"which is chaotic at peak hours." It doesn't work like that.

I can't see a time at the moment when this country will not want

to protect the motorway and trunk road network from ice and snow.

The salt in my hand at the moment is probably more or less

what we'll be putting on a meter squared in the motorway network

in the West Midlands and arguably, if that wasn't there

and ice formed and somebody died as a result of that,

that salt probably cost us about 10p, say, in round figures.

That's a very shrewd minor investment.

This is my little den, this is.

Quite messy at the moment. It's usually quite neat, isn't it, Tina?

Are you an organised man?

I would like to think I am organised, yes.

But I think you've caught me on a bad day.

Hello, Peter! Sounds like an echo. Are you in the bath?

Oh, why can I hear bubbles?

With road surface temperatures due to drop below freezing tonight,

Mark deploys his gritting troops.

All right, then, mate, I've got to go, mate.

I know you like talking and all that but I've got things to do.

All right, then, mate. OK, yeah. You enjoy yourself.

Ta-ra. Ta-ra.

I don't know what all the moaning's about.

They all moan about when they go out gritting.

It's really very therapeutic, therapeutic going out there,

spreading a bit of salt and put a bit of music on.

Don't see what the problem is, really.

It's what I hate, the call out bit,

because you have to carry your phone wherever you go.

Even when you get to the toilet, you have to have your phone

in your pocket because it can go off at any time.

On the front line of winter maintenance is gritter Pete.

Many a time, I've just been to the chippy

and then the call you need to attend

and you're wolfing it down as quick as you can.

"I've got to go, I've got to go!"

And my wife is going, "I'm sure they'll wait." But no, they won't.

If they say you have to grit at this time, you have to grit at this time.

There is no two ways about it.

He's been spreading salt on the same route for the last six years.

The tarmac, as we see, it's got lots of little holes in it, like an Aero.

And when we grit we spread the grit all in those holes

so when it does freeze, effectively,

there's salt and grit in there to stop the water in those holes from freezing.

And where are we coming up to now?

This is junction six, which is Spaghetti Junction.

It's always being repaired, it's just constantly being repaired all the time.

Salt will rot anything. Anything metal-wise, it'll just rot.

Any of these juts you feel we're going over now and you can hear,

then the salt will get in them and they'll just rot them away.

So, you're effectively putting something down on the motorway

-that's destroying the motorway?

-Yeah!

Yeah. If you want to put it like that, yeah, we are.

With its sprawling concrete arteries towering over a network of canals,

rivers and railways, Spaghetti Junction

is the largest and most complex interchange in Europe.

It's like a cathedral, with the columns holding the beams up.

It's holding a lot of concrete up.

It's like a big jigsaw really, isn't it?

How everything just slots in together.

It carries 225,000 vehicles a day, but this junction,

loved or loathed by millions, is deteriorating.

We're actually underneath Spaghetti Junction now,

this is one of the crossbeams that's holding the motorway up.

The salt from winter gritting on the road surface

is corroding the steel rods, causing the concrete to deteriorate.

Basically when the salt comes through the beam,

it goes on top of the beam and if there's cracks on the beam,

the water will get in and it'll pop the concrete.

Repairs started on Spaghetti Junction in 1989,

and site manager Steve Wood has dedicated the last nine years

to the project.

Everybody's going, doing their business, driving along

on the motorway, and they don't even realise we're under here,

working away, making sure it's safe

for the guys who are driving over the top.

Built in 1972, Spaghetti Junction was a feat of British engineering.

NEWSREEL: Rising out of the mud, the finished columns

are like the vast ruins of an ancient Greek temple.

At a cost of £9 million,

it took just four years to build the six-lane carriageway and link roads

that have become an integral part in the country's motorway system.

It appears many drivers just can't wait to try out

that multi-multi level interchange at Graverly Hill.

Well, a friendly word of advice -

know where you want to go and just follow the signs.

I declare this motorway open!

In this hidden world of rabbit warrens of scaffolding,

Steve and his team are at the cutting edge of motorway repairs

as they replace rusting steel and ageing concrete.

The first stage of the process is to blast out the old concrete,

using high pressure water jets.

This is rubber

and the trousers underneath are made of Kevlar.

You know the body armour, that's what they use it for.

Kevlar is used in combat, because it's bullet proof.

That's where it, that's where it protects you, from there,

going round, main arteries.

What would happen if you don't wear all this stuff?

-You'd get hurt.

-You'd get wet.

You'd get wet and yeah,

the concrete would just pulverise you, basically, it would hurt.

At £32,000 per square inch of pressure,

the water cuts through the concrete like a knife through butter.

Once the old concrete is blasted out,

any rusted steel rods are replaced.

The next step is to fill the gaps with new concrete.

There's issues like this in Japan

and they're looking at ideas in Japan what we do here in Birmingham.

Do they speak English or do you speak Japanese?

They spoke English, I can't speak Japanese!

Finally, a network of cables are installed

that constantly send electric currents into the steel,

ensuring Spaghetti Junction endures decades of winter salting.

The current pulverises the steel, it just stops it corroding.

It's maybe, three volts, two volts, that's all you need.

It's nothing drastic, with a 20-25 year life span.

The Junction's maintenance work is ongoing,

and Steve intends to see it through until he retires.

People say it's just a job, but it's not, it's...

I'm passionate about working on Spaghetti because I just feel

as if I've done my part, my little bit towards keeping it up and built.

Are you proud?

Yeah, yeah, I'm proud of... Yeah, very proud of it.

Just to let you know, we've got lanes 2 and 3 set for you.

The regional control centre in the West Midlands

is the traffic office's headquarters.

In all weather, 365 days a year, staff coordinate the on-road teams.

Got a male walking on the M6, just like he's on a Sunday stroll.

We're just coming up the hard shoulder now, behind him.

Not a clue.

There you are, just noticed it, right next to him.

Highways Agency traffic officers patrol the motorways,

attending to routine breakdowns, incidents and even pedestrians.

They're just advising him of the error of his ways.

There you are, he's from Latvia

and he's trying to get to Birmingham and at the moment he's up here on

the M6 between 13 and 12, and he's trying to get down into Birmingham.

So, he's got a long way to walk!

You don't know what's the matter with it?

-Where are you trying to get to?

-Dudley.

-Oh right, not far, local.

At junction ten, traffic officers Karen and Colin

have been called to a live lane breakdown.

It's not good here because we're on a bend.

Breakdown callouts are higher in winter,

putting extra pressure on the Highways Agency traffic officers.

You should never be a human bollard!

No! That's not the name of the game.

See, look at that, Colin jumping across there like a gazelle.

-I couldn't get over like that.

-Go on, give us a go.

SHE LAUGHS

In fact, I should actually be this side.

I know! Ha ha!

-Different style.

-Yeah, yeah, very different.

He leaps over like a gazelle, I get over like a sloth.

This is lovely, absolutely lovely.

Karen and Colin are two of the longest serving traffic officers

and have over 60 years' driving experience between them.

I think driving as a whole was a pleasure at one time, initially.

I can remember as a young man when I first started driving,

it was a pleasure to go out. I purposefully went out

just to have a drive.

Times have a-changed.

It's that intensely used that the slightest thing to stop that flow

of traffic has a massive impact.

Wheelbarrows falling off the back of lorries and swans...

Blown tyres.

-People walking.

-Tyre debris.

-Anything on the more minor level,

that's where we can be there as quickly as possible to sort it out.

You know, you have people shout at you things like,

"Get it out the way!"

Well, don't you think we would if we could, you know?

We're not just sitting here because I like it!

Following the White Friday snow storms of 2003,

over 1,000 traffic officers now patrol the motorways,

helping Britain's motorists.

Oh, all right, Seb, I think he's a quiet crocodile...

I can see red flashing lights in front.

Oh, Sebby, there are some flashing lights coming up on the motorway.

Think it's the police?

Is it the police?

I don't know, I don't know what they do.

What does a traffic officer do?

The truck drivers call them plastic policemen.

Fully aware of them, you often see them sitting on their perch

on the side of the motorway, ready to come on if they see...

if there's an accident, they're normally the first ones to get to it.

They look like police cars,

because they've got the high-vis stickers on, haven't they?

And then when you get closer, I just think,

"Oh... they're not the police."

And what does that mean, then?

Drive faster.

You see in the press, certain people like to run us down.

TV presenters!

HE LAUGHS

Jeremy Clarkson runs us down a lot, says we're Wombles.

I think he got some image in his mind that we picked up litter.

Good old Jeremy Clarkson, he's made a mockery of us in his shows,

blowing up the mock hato cars.

RINGTONE: "Remember You're A Womble"

You've got to embrace it, haven't you? You've got to embrace it.

Jeremy Clarkson.

Somebody that spouts on like they know it all.

Mind you, the last time I was at a closure on the toll,

who should come past me, but James Bond.

-James Bond?

-Yes, Timothy Dalton.

-Really?

-Yes. And he says, "This isn't very good, is it?"

I said, "No, not really, which way are you going?

"North or south?" That's my claim to fame.

Don't go yet, wait, don't go yet, wait.

Go, go, go, go, go, go!

Watch out for that speed boat coming round the corner.

That jet ski.

Alongside the traffic officers patrolling the motorway

are Lee and Wayne of the incident response unit.

We've done some litter picking, we've cleaned the gullies off at 16,

cleaned some gullies up on the straight. We've been busy today.

They serve 100 miles of the motorway

and deal with whatever it throws at them.

It's like a skid in the pants really, to be honest with you.

The motorway is like a skid in the pants.

But we have to clean it up, we've got to mop it up.

During winter, the motorway verges have less greenery and foliage,

making it an ideal time for litter picking.

This is like the glorious side of our job,

picking up someone else's rubbish.

I reckon the people who chucked this rubbish, their house is immaculate because they've chucked it all here!

Tell you what we do find a lot of, pornos. Pornos.

Yeah, we do.

Money, iPods, phones, wallets.

Tools and shoes as well.

There's always only ever one shoe, in't there?

There's always only ever one shoe, where's the other one?

Doing litter picking, you find out the nation's favourite crisp has got to be cheese and onion.

-Yeah!

-Cheese and onion crisps.

THEY LAUGH

Every year, 180,000 sacks of litter are collected on Britain's motorways

and major trunk roads, and if it's not picked up

it can block drains, causing surface water on the carriageway.

I hate this job, absolutely hate this job.

There's just no need for it.

The money that's spent picking litter up

-should be spent somewhere better.

-Definitely.

But doing a job like this, when it's done and completed,

it's the satisfaction of like, it's all neat and tidy,

until like, tomorrow when it's going to be like this again.

We're nearly there, Wayne.

What we got here? Fresh cooked chicken.

Nice.

Even weather forecasters are describing the storm

now battering western parts of the UK as "exceptional".

A month's worth of rain is anticipated to fall

over the next two days in some areas, with now almost every part

of the UK covered by a weather warning for wind, rain or snow.

At the West Midlands regional control centre,

an emergency meeting is called.

Today's meeting is all about whatever the weather

throws at us today, we're prepared, we're ready,

working under pressure to make sure from ministers that everything

runs smoothly across the country and the road infrastructure

bears the brunt of the weather in such a way

as to not disrupt the nation too much, we hope.

Good morning, one and all, this is Steve, West Midlands RCC,

thank you for dialling in this morning.

With the West Midlands on high alert, the Highways Agency

and winter managers plan for whatever the weather may bring.

The worst case scenario for us,

I suppose today, would be an inaccurate forecast.

It's very hard to predict, at the moment the wind is the one

that we're going to have to watch.

Andrew, can you give us an update from the Met office then, please?

'At the moment what we're going to see is a core of heavier rain

'and that's going to be accompanied by some strong winds.

'Isolated gusts of 40 to 50 miles an hour.'

Richard Hancocks, Amey severe weather manager.

We've taken a forecast this morning which suggests

slightly higher wind speeds than you're predicting.

We've got west one domain where they're telling us

we might experience 65 mile an hour winds

as far across as Shrewsbury and Shropshire.

'Yeah, I can see where they're getting that from.

'It's just the wind's gone more into the west

'and you get a core of strong winds, but it's essentially impacting

'north Wales, but for Shropshire area,

'it'll be much less than that, essentially.

'So more like, towards 50 miles an hour.'

'The planning, when the storm was first forecast,

'we're hoping that that planning is going to be enough.

'We hope that the forecast has got it right.

'And it sounds pretty awful,'

but we'd kind of be quite grateful

if it went past us and went over somebody else.

Everybody breathes a sigh of relief and goes home

and sleeps a nice quiet, comfortable night.

Holy crap!

Perhaps I won't go just at this moment in time.

The wind speeds are starting to increase,

the heavy rain that was predicted has arrived.

Is it as bad as it looks?

Nearly picked me up.

As forecast!

HE CHUCKLES

On road, all emergency and breakdown services are on high alert.

You've not picked a good day for it, have you?

Nick Evers is the AA patrol man of the year.

The great thing about our job is the fact

that everybody's pleased to see you.

Doesn't matter who they are, what they're doing,

when you turn up, the smile normally appears.

When these trucks come past,

it's like somebody's throwing a bucket of water at you.

I don't think this is going to work, is it?

Ooo! Ooo!

What happened?

Coming down, got a flat tyre.

And I've got a spare tyre, but no tools in the back to do it.

And he's got the job now, lying on the wet floor and everything.

They're real heroes, aren't they, really?

Coming rescuing, weather's like this and...

Breaking down is a very stressful thing, especially on a motorway.

It's a really frightening place to be.

As long as I know I can get the car fixed, it's great.

You know, you can have a little laugh and a joke

and just lighten people's spirits.

But you need a sense of humour.

You have to. The things we see, you need a sense of humour.

At Junction 7, the winds are already gusting at 50 miles an hour.

LAUGHTER

Ooo!

Ha! It's crazy, this is.

In the control room, the high winds have brought a deluge of calls

from the motoring public and officers on patrol.

Two RTCs, junctions 11 to 10, over.

Seems like the informant has said a long object

has hit his vehicle which came off another vehicle

as it was passing and broken his windscreen.

Apparently, a tree has fallen onto an LGV.

He says it's fallen across the hard shoulder, into the first lane.

I can't see a tree.

The wind's just moving the camera.

So when the wind picks up, it just blows it about

and we get a bit of a wobbly picture.

If you look at it for too long, you're going to go all dizzy.

Oscar Sierra 21, Code 6 received.

DISPATCHER: "Do something about this tree,

"otherwise we might need some help if they can't do it."

They're en route to you now.

Adam Fields is the youngest manager

in the West Midlands motorway maintenance team,

and it's his first winter in charge.

The incident we're going to, there's only one lane running

and it's 4:30, it's quite a busy time.

They're going to be late for tea, I think, a lot of these.

They're probably a bit pissed off that we're using the hard shoulder

because we don't have blue lights on our vehicles to get to incidents,

we have yellow lights.

And of course, you see yellow lights, people might think

we're just a recovery firm and trying to, er...cheat.

Looks as though there's a car involved as well, doesn't it?

So I'm just hoping they're not injured, to be honest.

The tree had fallen over into the slow lane,

so this truck was quite ahead of me.

So he swerved from the slow lane into the middle,

into the fast lane to avoid the tree.

I could see that I was going to hit the back of the truck,

so I had to turn slightly, only it was too late

and I clipped the back of it and game over.

That's what I thought, you know, if I lose him, oh, I would..

You wouldn't lose me.

With rush-hour traffic building,

Adam needs to call out the team of stand-by tree surgeons

to clear the carriageway.

The two furthest out would definitely need to come down

and I think these other trees may need to be assessed

so that if the poor weather continues,

we don't have the same situation in an hour's time, really.

So we're just waiting for the lads to come with the chain saws

and hope to get this bit of branch down now.

I don't like the way that's still swinging.

They're trying to get to us, but they can't

because the traffic's backlogged, so they can't get through.

We just take the rough with the smooth, simple as that, you know.

Like every day, one thing or another.

HE LAUGHS

In the regional control centre,

they're dealing with the fallout from the storms.

We're at the peak time of the rush-hour now.

We've got 23 kilometres of congestion on the M6.

We've only got one lane running.

We're still waiting for the tree surgeon to arrive.

This is quite substantial congestion now.

How far back from this box is it?

Thank you very much. We'll get someone to look at that.

Got no cameras, got no crews.

We have had multiple reports of trees falling.

OK, they've got five trees blocking all lanes.

They need you to stop the traffic so they can retrieve the trees, over.

60-foot conifers, over.

It's amazing what the weather can throw at you.

The last thing I was expecting today

was 60-foot conifers across the carriageway.

HE EXHALES

All right, mate. The tree cutters have just got on site at this first one.

Where Ade and Shaggy is, chaos, mate.

Trees are falling down left, right and centre.

He thinks it might be best to close Junction 15, to be honest.

But will we be allowed to close the motorway at 6:00pm?

I'm not sure, to be honest.

I'm a bit more concerned about them. It's a bit dangerous.

OK, mate.

Why do you worry about your workers so much and their safety?

Because we had two workers run over just over a year ago,

Rob and Gordon, which wasn't very nice.

We don't want that to happen again, so...

Now we've got to think, are we best off closing the motorway

at Junction 15, obviously when we've spoken to everybody concerned.

Any decision to close the motorway

has to come from the Highways Agency.

Tonight, team manager Nina is on duty.

-I've just been talking to James, he's in conference with Staffs.

-Yeah.

Are we going for a total closure at 15?

Not at the moment.

He's getting he idea that we...

I haven't said a total closure at 15.

What I've agreed is if our crew are in a position

to move the trees to the hard shoulder from the live lane,

they will do that to clear the obstruction from the carriageway.

It is contracted, isn't it?

It is, but it's not in all the lanes.

I'm reluctant to close the motorway.

And we also can't confirm

that the diversion routes are clear of flooding and trees,

-so it's a no-win situation, really.

-Exactly.

-If I can keep the motorway open, I will.

-OK. Did you hear that?

HORN BLARES

Adam is still on his way to the scene of the fallen conifers,

but has had to stop on the hard shoulder.

I am stuck behind you, mate.

Oh, you're joking! The roof's blowing off?

OK, mate, cheers for that.

What?!

You know Keele Services that we drove past?

There's rumours now that the roof's blowing off.

HORN BLARES

Got to rely on people moving out of the way for us,

which I don't know if they will do, to be honest.

Don't go back! Whoa!

On the hard shoulder, Adam spots the first of the six fallen trees.

That's like something out of Jurassic Park, in't it, that?

This one here, that's on the entrance to the services.

-You all right, mate?

-Yeah.

-You sure?

-Yeah.

-Is it a relief to see them?

-Yeah!

Yeah. Like, my job is just trying to coordinate the guys on the roads.

So my job's a lot easier than what their job is.

I always hope they're all right.

Five tree surgeons and Adam's team

deal with the worst case of fallen trees on the M6 in a decade.

These guys, they generally go to traffic accidents every other day,

but something like this is quite rare, to be honest.

It looks a bit like Jurassic Park, doesn't it?

One of the dinosaurs is here(!)

You poor old fossil!

It must be nice to be loved.

Five minutes and we'll be done.

I'm surprised that the incidents on the M6

haven't made it to the national news.

But it shows how much is going on today.

Shows how many incidents are going on around the country.

After six hours of gale-force winds, the storm finally passes

and it's the end of a long shift.

Good night. See you tomorrow.

Good night!

What's it looking like out there?

Nice and calm now.

Have a good night.

In the middle of the night, the wind was howling.

I think it's blown over now. The sky is blue.

It's better than yesterday.

Just had to include this little bit of the 54, it's on our patrol route.

Makes a change from looking at concrete all the time.

-We tend to get...

-A few escapees!

A few escapees onto the motorway.

I must admit, some of the funniest times we've had is chasing lambs.

-And deer.

-And deer.

And ducks. And dogs.

Oh, yeah. A few traffic officers have ended up with an extra pet.

The one I took home dominates the middle of the bed most nights.

Bless him!

A big, dim ginger cat.

Whenever we work together and we get a call for an injured animal, we...

That's when we're really worried.

Yeah. In trepidation.

An average of 30 animals a month

stray onto the M6 and surrounding roads.

Is this an animal, or is this, like...?

-What the hell is that?

-LAUGHTER

It's got a nose.

-What the hell is it?

-I don't know what it is.

Oh, a badger.

It's a badger, by the looks of it.

Well, what's left of it, anyway.

But, er...badgers have got a thing for...

I know that it's flat and that, but we've had a few problems

-with them exploding in people's faces, haven't we?

-Yeah.

Their bodies actually explode and go in people's faces,

so we have to wear all this suit.

But there's not much left of that badger,

so I don't think we need to be suited up, really, for that.

I'll put my eye glasses on just in case it goes in my face.

We have all the nice jobs, don't we?

-It's got to be done.

-The smell varies but...

The smell does vary!

Yeah, it depends if it's a hot day or cold,

but you just get used to it.

Each season brings different types of animals

which Lee and Wayne have to deal with.

It can be deer, foxes, badgers, cats...

-Could be even horses, can't it?

-Yeah.

Sheep or anything like that. Anything, any livestock, really.

-Normally, nine out of ten, they're dead, aren't they?

-Yeah.

Did you like my way of picking up that badger?

Do you like animals?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. Some taste really nice.

Not too bad at all.

I've actually got a fear of a certain animal.

You have, haven't you? Chicken.

Chickens. Chickens are like the bird of Satan.

-You're scared of chickens.

-Chickens are evil.

I think the one thing that I dread above all else,

is if ever I'm told to go to an accident that involves

a sheep wagon or something like that.

Oh, right, yeah, carrying livestock.

Oh, a livestock wagon. I will need therapy.

I told you about that story about the one that I went to recently

and it was a St Bernard. It was like trying to move a donkey.

It was massive.

-Had he got an owner?

-Not on the motorway.

Did they manage to trace them?

-I think they did.

-Oh, thank goodness for that.

It's not something that would go missing without you noticing,

-is it, really, a St Bernard?

-You'd miss it, I think.

-Yeah.

Yeah, can you just confirm the location of this dog?

'We were given 2-0-9 over 5 northbound.

'Right by lamp column, 5-7-2-9-6.'

Greyhound.

It hasn't got a tag, which is a bit strange,

but we'll go back to the yard and get the chipping device,

check to see if it's chipped.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's

either come from the houses over there

or the houses down here, and jumped over the barrier.

Yeah, it's a shame, really.

I'm going to have to get his legs, aren't I?

Hang on, save the bag open.

Badgers and stuff are just day to day, but dogs...

-I think this is the first dog I've had in a few months, this is.

-Yeah.

They like to bury them nowadays.

We've had a couple once make ashes and stuff, but...

It's a family pet, though, innit?

Yeah.

At the end of the day, it's part of the family so...

Every domestic and wild animal

is stored at the nearest maintenance depot.

You have to log everything down on a list

and this is the... Oh, my God. This is the freezer,

but not the freezer you really want to get your beefburgers out of.

All the animals, if they're not collected,

if the dogs aren't collected,

they go to be incinerated which is...the safest way, or whatever.

Plus, it keeps them kind of fresh.

-Stops them decomposing, yeah.

-Decomposing, yeah.

But actually every dog that we pick up has to be scanned

just in case we can locate the owner.

No tag found.

Yeah.

Aw.

Back in the freezer you go, Luke. As he's got no name,

-we're going to call him Luke, aren't we?

-Yeah.

-This is Luke.

-Goodbye, Luke.

When I first started on here, we took -

it was a Springer spaniel - round to the guy's house,

he wanted to see it there and then, like,

but luckily that dog wasn't actually in a bad mess.

But he kept hold of it and I think he buried the dog with the family,

because it was a proper family's pet...

He nearly started crying, the bloke did,

he was quite upset. He really...

You do get a bit involved and a bit wrapped up with it.

Yeah, course you do, yeah.

Food?

Definitely.

I'm a man who likes my food.

Oh!

Oh, you've got to look at this. You've got to look at this.

Look at this, what his missus has done for him. Eh?

Aw, look at that.

What does that say?

-Yeah, look at that.

-Aww...

See what I've got in mine?

Probably a death letter or something.

-A badger.

-Badger!

THEY LAUGH

Aw, that's so sweet for you, that is.

Do you know what?

-That's touching, that is, that's proper touching.

-Yeah.

Look at the state of that.

Now look at yours, look at the sandwich difference here.

I've got cheese on this one, he's got proper ham, egg.

-Let's have a look.

-Look at that. Look at the difference.

-Hold it up again.

-Mine's right scabby.

I'd be happy with a bit of mould on it,

just give it a bit more flavour, you know!

Hurricane-force storms brought chaos to the road and rail network.

Severe flood warnings remain in place in southwest

and southeast England, with a warning that a month's rain

will fall in the next few days.

Despite the Highways Agency's preparations for ice and snow,

it's the wind and rain that's causing the serious issues

in what is the wettest winter in nearly 250 years.

Surface rainwater on the motorway is a serious issue for motorists.

Well, if we don't clear the water off,

it can end up on the main carriageway.

If you look behind you, it's partly on the slip road.

We're going to try and get rid of that as well now.

When a car travelling at speed hits excess water on the carriageway,

the wheels can lose traction, making the car impossible to control.

This is known as aquaplaning.

Road traffic accident between four and...

-Yeah, central reservation.

-She's on the hard shoulder.

Does she need an ambulance?

The weather is chaos. We're not telling people not to travel,

we're just saying if you need to travel, be prepared, be aware.

It's out of everybody's control.

What's the weather like out?

Due to get some more wet coming through shortly.

About 7 or 8 o'clock, there's supposed to be another front

of wet dropping on us through till about 9 o'clock so...

-Right.

-And quite heavy.

Andy, what's going on, sir?

Martin Studt is one of the original band of traffic officers

employed in 2003 after the White Friday snow storm.

And how would you describe yourself in that photo?

Fatter.

It was an exciting day for us all to come and join,

but it was the unknown. We didn't know what the job was

and we didn't know what we were undertaking.

A decade on, and Martin knows the reputational damage

that bad weather can cause.

I think there's constant pressure.

Each incident throws up, you know, media interest.

With heavy rainfall and poor driving conditions,

that immediately escalates,

and it's about using the last ten years to learn

what solutions we can come up with that are outside the box, really.

Reports of an RTC, a vehicle spun out of control sideways.

The storms that have flooded thousands of homes and roads

in the south of England have reached the West Midlands.

The wind's picked up really badly.

The rains are coming down heavier again.

We've got a vehicle gone off road on the M54.

We've got an accident involving an LGV and a car, by the looks of it.

I'm just sorting the signals out at the moment.

Now, with the region on high alert,

the control centre

and on-road traffic officers are running at full capacity.

Rain, high winds, RTCs, breakdowns,

RTCs and breakdowns in the roadworks, the M50's flooded,

the M54, we've had vehicles left the carriageway.

You name it, it's happened.

The town of Worcester has flooded,

and 65mph gusting winds have closed the two Severn bridges.

The M50 is the last remaining route into South Wales.

I know it looks really bad where you are,

but down there they've closed both the bridges

because they're having it really bad.

And with 3 being a bell junction, if we divert off at 3,

then I don't know if we're causing more harm than good.

How bad is the flooding there?

Fairly serious, but it's the only arterial route

that we've got at the moment so it's key for the public,

emergency services, hospitals, etc, that we keep that road open.

Well, that's like a little bit of a river.

With ten years' experience in the job,

Highways Agency team manager Sue Hine arrives at the M50 flooding.

So this is what we're up against.

It's coming out at all angles,

and you can see it's eroding the actual ground away.

We're going up to junction 3,

that's flowing like a river across the motorway

and as you can see across here,

lane 2 is completely taken up by the flood there,

bit of a landslip further along as well, which we need to deal with.

Watch yourself, you're going to get soaked again.

SHE SHRIEKS

Nothing like a shower at this time of night(!)

Thank you very much, whoever that was.

It's a good job I don't care.

SHE LAUGHS

All right, let me get back to you.

-Really need to avoid closing.

-Bye.

I just told her if we close this then we can't guarantee

that the traffic has got anywhere to go

and if it does have somewhere to go,

then it's not going to end up in a worse situation as well.

-We keep it open, then.

-Yeah.

I'm waiting for the chief inspector to get back to me.

There's a multitude of jobs going on

on the whole of the West Midlands network

and country-wide for the Highways Agency.

We're fighting an immense battle.

What's going to happen if it doesn't work?

Um... Plan Z.

I think we've worked through A, B, C, D, E, F

and most of the alphabet at the moment.

We have a fallback plan. PHONE RINGS

It's a first for me in ten years.

Hello, Martin speaking.

I shall be very, very brief.

We've invoked the Army for the M50.

That's about to go out probably in the next 20 minutes,

realistically, in a convoy, but hopefully that will keep us open.

Martin's decision to call in the Army

is unprecedented in the history of the Highways Agency.

I've never known it before,

but then I don't think we've had weather quite as bad as this before.

40 soldiers arrive to help shovel the silt

and clear the surface water.

Anybody got a spare couple of pairs of hands

can help me put some cones out, please.

Down the line, please, probably about ten metres apart.

There you go, somebody, if you follow him down.

Straight down the line, straight down the middle, please.

Can you start there and...? No, here. Yeah. Follow him down.

I have four children, I know how to boss.

As another deluge of rain falls, the Army stack 1,500 sandbags

as quickly as possible to contain the floodwater.

It's pouring down with rain again, as you can see,

and unfortunately not all of it's being stopped.

But what we're going to do is go onto the next one

and we'll just come back to this if necessary

and see if we can do anything else for it

because the main priority is,

we've got to keep the M50 open so we'll just keep working.

North of Stafford on the southbound.

PHONE RINGS

All right, cheers. Cheers, mate. Thank you, bye.

Hello, Martin speaking.

All right, give us about an hour

and maybe the world will have calmed down.

-How are you doing?

-I'm having a great evening(!)

See if they can get the Army to contain it with sandbags

and we'll just monitor it for a bit.

-What would it mean if you had to shut that motorway?

-Disaster.

Which we're trying to avoid, so quite a lot of impact

on a huge amount of people,

so the priority is obviously to try and keep it open.

Excellent job, boys, well done.

At the second site, eight soldiers

and sergeants from the Central Motorway Police Group

join the shovelling operation.

Nice to see you're putting your back into it, Sarge.

Ooh! Hello, boys.

We're here for shovelling.

THEY LAUGH

It's stopped raining, my hair's starting to dry out.

We are winning. We are winning.

How's it looking down the bottom end?

-Done. Fixed.

-Brilliant.

Four hours since the Army arrived, the storm has passed

and the surface water has been cleared from the carriageway.

Guys, you can go back to your wagons.

Thanks ever so much for your help. Very much appreciated.

Nature is nature, isn't it?

You can't hold back the force of nature, it's as simple as that.

You can just do what you can do,

which is what we've done tonight, quite successfully, actually.

Thanks very much for your help up there, cheers.

Yay.

Done and dusted.

I've got a sore throat.

It's something if Karen's sick of talking.

This doesn't happen very often.

We haven't stopped.

We really have not stopped.

It's doing the job that's intended

and in the cold light of day, tomorrow,

we can see that we've done everything correctly.

And that, you know, it's nice and tidy,

it's safe for the public to travel on

so we'll make a reassessment first thing in the morning.

So are you going to be able to keep the motorway open?

Absolutely, yeah.

At all costs.

This winter, the Highways Agency was well prepared for the snow and ice,

but for the M6 and its surrounding motorways,

just 9,000 tonnes of its winter salt stocks were used,

a record low.

Yeah, believe it or not, there is actually a gully

somewhere underneath here.

Instead, it's been the wind and rain

that's caused the toughest challenge for the Highways Agency.

For me, winter's all about making sure that we keep

all of our carriageways free from snow and ice.

Then, all of a sudden, the thing that did catch us out

was February and the high winds and the REALLY heavy rain.

Bit of chaos and then we're back to business as usual with winter,

spending a fortune spreading salt,

and waiting for the next significant severe weather event to occur.

It's not bad, not bad.

It's turned out quite nice, it's warming up a little bit.

Well, that's our route done two times.

Yeah.

Everybody's behaving today... at the moment.

But wait a minute, you never know what might happen.

Whoa, RTC there.

It's life in the fast lane.

I've never known that happen before.

Oh, that doesn't look good. I can see it, mate.

TYRES SCREECH

HORN BLARES

It's a go-fast world...

We won't keep you too long. They're just filling a pothole in, OK?

..and we are just stuck right in the middle of it.

Wait there, we've stopped these for a reason!

SIREN BLARES