The Need for Speed 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!

..and to help us when things go wrong.

2-1, can I have an ambo, please?

Trying, at all costs...

Oh!

..to keep Britain on the move.

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

They should call it the Mad 6 instead of the M6.

HE LAUGHS

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

SAT NAV: In 100 yards at junction 15, turn left onto the M6.

Turn left and then to the motorway.

Are we on the motorway again now, Seb?

-No.

-We are.

We are, look how fast everybody's going.

Why sit in the middle lane?

They're not overtaking anything.

Look at her, just sat there like a moron.

Slows my journey down.

RADIO CHATTER

This is the Highways Agency's West Midlands regional control centre.

Overseeing nearly 700 miles of Britain's fastest roads.

Just watching some police vehicles going through at warp speed.

Whoa.

Thank you, Kel.

The staff here are responsible for keeping the motorway traffic

running at high speed, and for spotting trouble ahead.

Yeah, from CCTV now, lane three, we've got a wheel at that location.

There's his caravan.

Yeah, just further to this,

there is a caravan in live lane on the slip road.

Appears to be the offending vehicle that's lost the wheel.

The caravan wheel poses a big risk to the speeding vehicles.

I've got a lane-three signal on to advice members of the public

to stay out of lane three.

That's a blind bend, effectively.

If someone hits that, it's going to cause a secondary accident.

Receiving, thanks. Just to advise,

they're not taking much notice of the lane-three closure.

We have got reports of a person in the carriageway.

The motorist looks like he's going to attempt to clear it himself.

Is there a telephone number for the caravan driver?

He's gone into the carriageway.

Yeah, he's crossing the carriageway.

Alpha Whisky Mike 1-3,

you've got a male in the carriageway collecting this wheel.

He's retrieved it...

Obviously, on safety grounds, I wouldn't recommend that people

go to get their personal belongings from a live carriageway

with traffic travelling at 70mph.

I wouldn't do it.

It only takes one motorist to do something daft.

Only takes one person to be going a bit too quickly

and then you'll get the whole system, you know,

in that area, snarled up.

On the northbound M5, between junctions 2 and the incident,

there's over 3km of congestion.

A prosperous society depends upon our roads,

so there's a purpose to them,

there's a reason behind the way they are designed and built

and, ultimately, it's about getting people from A to B

as quickly as possible.

More than 40 million drivers use the M6 every year,

all trying to reach their destination by the fastest route.

I like motorway driving,

cos you can test the limits of the car, you can really,

sort of, put your foot down, and because it's a fast car,

you can drive fast.

Families on day trips

jockey with salesmen driving up to 1,000 miles a week...

Look at this idiot here.

On his phone!

..lorries carrying everything from nappies to environmental waste.

It's a vast business, the...the motorway.

Everything on each lorry is money.

If we're not there on delivery on time,

it just brings the whole lot to a stop.

It's estimated that the cost to the British economy

of stopping this road is almost £200,000 an hour.

If we all have moving traffic, we're all happy.

Drew, you OK for a handover?

Duty operations manager Steve Bird is responsible for overseeing

a team of 49 operators working around the clock.

The only thing that's going to impact this afternoon which you should make

sure the late shift are aware of is the Beyonce concert at the O2 Arena.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-Super. All right, Drew. Thank you.

The Highways Agency staff have 450 CCTV cameras

and are constantly on the lookout for anything that could bring

the motorway to a stop.

You can very quickly get an idea of what's going on

by the activity in the room, the transmissions over the radio.

So, you can tell, when you walk in the room what's going on, generally.

..1-2.

That's all noted, thank you.

Everything's routine, noise levels, activity levels,

and everything's telling me that we're in a good place at the moment.

Oh, that doesn't look good.

I can see it, mate, I can set it but the signals are red-boxed.

It's a broke-down HGV that just hasn't managed to

get onto the hard shoulder, he's got his backside sticking out.

It's M6, junction 3.

By the sounds of it, it's possibly just a mechanical breakdown

of the HGV, OK.

I mean, it's unconfirmed yet, but I don't know

until they arrive again what the update is.

Whisky Mike 4-3,

be able to take a live-lane breakdown at junction 3 of Bravo M6.

I've got a vehicle protruding into lane one, over.

Yeah, copy that, do we know what this vehicle is, over?

It's a HGV, over.

The stranded lorry is already delaying vehicles

heading south towards Birmingham.

Traffic officers Steph and Dean are part of a national team

of over 1,000 Highways Agency officers.

They need to move the lorry quickly before the problem escalates.

Out of his eight wheels, seven of them are on the hard shoulder

but there's still, probably, five tonnes of metal sat in lane one,

so...not something that you want to be running into, to be honest.

Yeah, it's the priority to get it moved.

Right, if we try and drag it, will it...? Is it loaded?

It's fully loaded, I don't think you'll shift it with that.

The lorry's brakes have locked on.

While they wait for a recovery service

Steph and Dean have no choice but to close the lane.

Yeah, it's still doing full motorway speed.

Alpha Whisky Mike 4-3, lane one is in place, over.

All that stands between the speeding traffic,

and the stationary truck are 12 50cm-high traffic cones.

I was going to say, it pigging stinks, doesn't it?

That is full of sewage.

SHE LAUGHS

Is it human sewage?

Really?!

It's human sewage!

SHE LAUGHS

It's awful. It's a bit shit, isn't it?

SHE LAUGHS

Dean calls the lorry operator to let them know that unless their

breakdown service arrives quickly, the Highways Agency will have

to recover the vehicle...

All right, don't swear at me.

..and charge them £350.

Have you finished shouting?

Yeah, all right, OK.

If you're telling me they're coming, that's fine,

but we have a lot of people...

Will you let me fin...?

If yours...if yours is en route...

Right, have you finished shouting and swearing at me?

TYRES SQUEAL

HORNS BLARE

Excellent. They're not paying the blindest bit of attention.

I tell you what, mate, we've coned it all out, we've shut lane one,

but we've just nearly had it struck.

Get over...now.

Eek, eek, eek, eek, eek!

'It looks as though that is recovery.'

Yeah, recovery's just arrived now,

so, erm, took about 50 minutes, in total, for his recovery.

So, we aim to, sort of, do it within 45 minutes to an hour

for a vehicle of that size.

How long? How long's it going to be?

He says he'll just drag it off now, a couple of minutes,

and then he'll do the rest on the shoulder.

Oh, OK. That's mad, isn't it?

That was close.

On Britain's motorways, nearly half of all cars are exceeding

the 70mph speed limit.

I've never had a speeding ticket. Never go over 100.

INDICATOR TICKS

Too fast.

I get annoyed...

when...

I'm doing the speed limit

and somebody comes right up the back of me, wanting ME to go faster.

Wow, let's go fast.

We are going fast, aren't we?

No, we're not.

We're not going fast.

Millions of vehicles a year driving at high speed

take their toll on the motorway infrastructure.

Keeping the system running at this pace

requires round-the-clock attention from an army of workmen.

And there is one problem that takes more of their energy than any other.

Lovely pothole.

Across the thousands of square miles of tarmac, there are hundreds

of potholes...waiting for Steve Taylor to detect them.

Another good day for it, Jed.

The travelling public don't really know what I do.

All they see is a motorway- maintenance vehicle

with two blokes sat in it.

I spend most of my working life in this vehicle.

I start as soon as we enter the motorway,

turn the survey button on, we then turn around,

if I come across a pothole, I then, literally, push a pothole button.

HE COUGHS

I'm sure, within a few minutes, all the potholes will start coming in.

Steve, chauffeured by his driver, Jed, conducts his search

for potholes three days a week at a steady 50mph.

You know...

..182...

it gets sent to the national control centre.

PHONE RINGS

Coming in now, this is Steve Taylor.

Yeah, control, I'm currently on the Western Arms southbound on the M6.

I've come across a reoccurring pothole.

OK, we'll get that logged

and assign it, too. Is it an immediate job?

Yes, yes.

The last thing you want is a vehicle hitting a pothole

or hitting any debris or anything like that,

because from one little pothole comes a major incident.

It's a strong responsibility...

first link of a chain.

1-2, just confirming that you're up and ready and on the network, over.

We'll be there in about five, ten minutes, max, over.

Yeah, that's all received.

Come on, then, let's get some work done.

But potholes can't be tackled in high-speed traffic.

-Yeah, we'd like a rolling road block for pothole M6...

-Yeah...

-..southbound.

-OK.

-Thank you.

Amey, the motorway maintenance company,

can only carry out these repairs

if the Highways Agency are prepared to bring the motorway to a halt.

Don't want to stop it at all, to be honest,

but sometimes we have no option, and we have to go ahead and do that.

If we have vehicles that are breaking down because

they're hitting potholes and it's causing punctures,

we've got no choice but to go ahead.

2-1, we've got a pothole,

rolling roadblock needed, if you can switch to channel two.

2-2, thank you, block on from junction 9,

I'll let you know when we've got control.

Traffic officers Frank and Steve

are responsible for slowing the motorway drivers down.

Right, all alpha crews, rolling block in place.

As far as you can see, I'm looking in my rear-view mirror,

and I've got a tail of cars now, a tailback.

They soon build up.

It's always best to keep the traffic moving if you can at a

very, very slow speed, instead of putting it to a stop.

If you've got to stop it, you've got to stop it,

and there's no way round it.

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

# What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster? #

No, it's a rolling block.

We have a lot of traffic now, as you can see from the camera,

that is now going back just under 2km.

So, hoping they release it shortly.

Don't want to hold the traffic up for too long, do you?

If it's too long,

they'll keep on asking, "How long, how long?"

It takes as long as it takes, doesn't it? You know what I mean?

Traffic has now been stopped for...three minutes.

With all of that traffic staring at you,

I think you would feel the pressure, yeah.

It's a go-fast world. There is no getting away from it,

it's a go-fast world.

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

We try to please the general public by keeping

the maintenance of the motorways down to a minimum.

Five minutes out of your day is not a lot.

Yeah, we've completed this pothole now,

you can let the block go. Many thanks.

All received, thank you.

Everybody's in a rush nowadays.

There's that many irate drivers, it's ridiculous.

Was it you had the yoghurt over you?

Yeah. I had just done one and they

just threw a yogurt, a full yogurt pot

out the car, and it hit me. Didn't know what had hit me, man.

I was just covered in yogurt, all because we repaired something!

Didn't taste nice, I think it was natural yogurt,

it weren't even strawberry or nothing, man.

I think people now want to get from point A to point B

as quick as they can, and they're not bothered about

who they upset or anything else.

This is Frank's 23rd year on the motorway.

He joined the Highways Agency

after 15 years with the motorway police.

I remember the motorway when it opened in 1972.

-Can't have been as busy then, can it?

-Wasn't, no.

-Used to finish at junction 9 and that used to be it.

-Right.

Finish at junction 7, and then they put the bit in the middle.

So you've seen huge changes then, haven't you?

Just the horse and carts got in the way a bit!

-No, I'm not quite old age just yet.

-But he's got his bus pass.

Seven months yet...before I'm an old man.

The Highways Agency staff work 365 days a year.

Three, two...

-I got it!

-I knew you would.

"What do you get if you cross a skeleton and a detective?"

-I'm not sure.

-"Sherlock Bones."

-HE LAUGHS

-There you go, you like that one.

Go ahead, 2-2.

It's early on Boxing Day,

which is often a troublesome day for the agency.

In the past, thousands of shoppers heading for the Boxing Day sales

have caused such big queues that junction 9

on the M6 has had to be closed.

If you go historically, you've always got a

considerable amount of congestion at junction 9.

They're all heading...

in particular, just to the two shops, which are Next and IKEA.

Oh, look, they've started to park on the footpath already.

It's only ten to eight.

-Wow.

-See, car park's already full.

-I wonder what Currys is like.

-Jesus Christ, look at this.

'I don't understand the logic of opening at 5 o'clock in the morning.'

Yeah, it's an environment that I wouldn't like to be in,

a ferocious environment when people are there for X, Y and Z.

Just checking to see if there is any congestion starting,

because it's 20 past nine, and, at present, no, there's still none,

still light traffic.

Why is it not affecting the motorway at the moment?

There's nothing happening

-on the air at all, is there?

-No, nothing at all.

I thought my radio had gone dead or something.

It's normally when you don't expect something that it all happens,

so...it's fairly quiet.

We prohibit the Q word,

and the minute anybody unleashes the Q word, it all breaks out.

Doesn't look any busier than when we went away before.

Dear me.

-Whoa...

-Keep going, RTC there.

Hotel Alpha Whisky... Other side.

Whiskey Echo 2-1, priority.

I want some... Got to get the debris...

We've got an RTC on the M5 northbound,

just prior to junction 1. We've got debris all over the place.

-Whoa!

-It's a cross-over, hang on. It's a cross-over.

Give us some lights.

Yeah, we've got a cross-over from southbound to northbound.

OVER RADIO: ..'got you on camera...'

INDISTINCT

I've got it. 7-0-5-5, I think.

We've got a cross-over on the M5, from 7-0-5-5, that's the camera.

-CRACKLING:

-'..1-1.'

-'Echo 1-1, go ahead.'

Yeah, that's received, do you need ambulance at all? Over.

I'm just on the northbound.

Are you all right, darling?

2-1, can I have an ambo please, on the northbound?

Person with a mouth injury.

GIRL COUGHS

The car has hit the central reservation,

and the engine has ended up on the opposite carriageway.

Yeah, facial injuries to her mouth, as well.

It's over the other side, if you can just keep over there, please.

The front there is severely damaged.

The vehicle looks like it's ridden up the barrier here,

and as it's done that it's obviously ripped everything out

and the engine's...come out of it.

I've never known that happen before. Very lucky.

Frank's priority is to get the four blocked lanes clear

and running as quickly as he can.

HE EXHALES

We've got the vehicle in lane one,

and we've got a load of debris in lane three. Received.

It's 9.30, and the Boxing Day traffic has begun to build.

If I go back to this camera...

as you can see, the congestion's back to the M6,

and that is the congestion from the incident on the M5.

No, it's not that hot.

..till they get here, till they throw some of their cones.

Fire on scene now, so we'll get it across

to the hard shoulder before you know it.

I was just in the middle lane coming round the bend,

and then the car just started to swerve to the left,

and there was like a lorry or a truck or something in that lane.

And so I just tried to right myself,

and I've just gone straight into the central reservation.

SHE SNIFFS

I'm glad that it's not a lot worse than it is.

And where were you off to?

Off to Nuneaton, it's a Boxing Day meal...

-VOICE BREAKING:

-..which I'm obviously not going to get to now.

Luckily, it's not a bad injury, and so,

I think now it's the barrier damage that's going to be the key issue.

It's virtually flat, so it may need to be replaced sooner

rather than later, which could take three or four hours,

that's an estimate.

For safety, the motorway maintenance team

decide the barrier must be repaired immediately.

There is nothing else the Highways Agency can do

but wait four hours while it's fixed.

It's one of those things that we face every day when we come in,

you think one thing's going to happen and the opposite does.

Because we've got two lanes closed of what would normally be

a three-lane carriageway, we've lost 66% of the capacity there,

so that's having a huge impact for thousands of road users.

They have to wait till everybody else gets through,

there's nothing we can do.

Our priority is this.

You've got to have a smile, because life's too short,

there's enough miserable people

without us being miserable. Isn't there?

SIREN WAILS

Drivers on the M6 are monitored by the Central Motorway Police Group.

96 officers form part of a specialised team,

equipped to deal with trouble in a high-speed environment.

Morning, all.

Anybody want a doughnut now or shall I put them in the rest room?

They're Tesco's finest, they're only little ones, you see.

-Thank you.

-I know.

Viv Baldwin has been a volunteer here one day a week

for the last five years, offering support for the frontline staff.

-Look, I've got doughnuts!

-I'm on a diet!

I know. Come on, what you talking about? Have a doughnut and shut up.

No, diet...

-All right! That's quite sort of...

-SHE LAUGHS

She's just somebody, easy to talk to, and to bounce things off.

I'm going to put these doughnuts away then.

-She's fun to talk to.

-Yeah. And she brings doughnuts!

And she brings food.

Which is obviously a bonus. Holy doughnuts.

-See that? HOLEY doughnuts.

-I like your style!

You'll kill me when you fail your fitness test.

Not my responsibility to look after their bodies,

it's their souls I'm after.

There's Martin, let's go and see him.

That's it, that's OK.

It's sort of on, more or less, it's not very comfortable.

And that turns me into a vicar.

Today's duties, first of all, Oscar Tango 2-1

is going to be Tony and Kash please.

-Oscar Tango 4-1, Viv, if that's OK?

-That's fine.

As you're going to be comms lady tonight. Just remind everybody about

their responsibilities regarding driving, please, making sure we

go home at the end of the night and the members of the public do,

-as well.

-To our families.

-Excellent.

-Viv, anything from yourself at all?

-Do you want a prayer?

Everybody happy with a prayer?

OK, let's say a prayer then.

Father, we thank you for all the work

that's done on the motorway, for everyone who holds the

motorway together and makes it work from end to end.

We ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you, Viv.

It's a stressful and dehumanising job.

-Viv, do you want to come in and obviously..?

-Yep.

They're dealing with all the worst stuff, and the police officers

can just come in and talk about it, and don't have to worry

about what they're saying, and they find that really, really helpful.

I'm an independent listening ear,

and I just hang about like a bad smell.

Tonight, the grandmother and clergywoman

is spending an evening with PC Dave Gaunt.

They've just received an emergency call to stop the M6.

OK, we're on the way to a girl that's on the bridge,

she's on the right side of the railings at the minute, and just

been tasked with going to shut the motorway at northbound just in case

she does go up onto the bridge, onto the wrong side and try and jump.

SIREN WAILS

I mean, nobody's going to pass us right now at 110mph.

120mph.

I'm just thinking about this lady who's going to...

Thinking about jumping.

I just think, "How sad."

SIREN STOPS AND HE HONKS HORN

Closure's on northbound.

There's somebody coming up lane three from the slipway.

So that will stop.

I heard she's on a bridge up there,

just walking up the centre of the bridge.

'I don't think anybody's bothered

'to put a closure on the bridge, have they?'

They've got her. They've got her. They've got her.

INDISTINCT

4-4, do you know if we can release the traffic yet?

-Lucky escape.

-Yeah.

How do you feel about those, Dave, cos, you know,

I just get all worked up about the fact that this woman is all upset

and wants to jump and we have to dive in and grab her.

Well you are. I try and look...

It's probably awful to think that...

you're looking at it from the motorists' perspective.

It's, like, people are probably wanting to be somewhere,

you've just shut the motorway stopping them from moving,

so you feel for them,

because they're going to get held up.

But you're also...you know, it's one of those,

when you're on top of the bridge, at what point..?

I know you saw the officers rushing towards her.

Did somebody grab her or..? And then the others rushed... You know what I mean?

It's, like, is it going to go pear shaped? Has he grabbed..?

Got a good firm hold of her? Is she going to struggle?

You know what I mean? It's lots of things - if you lunge for them,

if you miss and they jump, you know, is that going to be your fault?

It's lots of things going through your head.

Yeah, what's going on here?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

The motorway's a great road, but it can be an absolute nightmare,

because if there is a hold up, you can't go nowhere else.

Once you're stuck, you're stuck.

You can understand why people get angry,

and road rage and that frustration.

That's time in my life I'll never get back.

Never-ending.

Oh he's going...

Congestion caused by motorway closures

cost the UK an estimated £1 billion a year.

So small repairs need to be done quickly with minimum disruption.

On a filter road just off the M6,

a recurring pothole needs urgent attention.

You get a motorcycle that hits that,

and he could end up on another motorway if he hits there.

Just going to cut out the square patch,

go right down to the core and do it properly.

To repair the large pothole,

the Highways Agency will have to close one of the lanes.

He said 30 to 45, but I'm saying 30 to an hour.

When you've got two lanes

and you've got to take a lane out on a busy section, it's...

You get the traffic backing up and then we create more problems.

At the moment, he's not having much problem.

It's going to be in the next few hours when it starts building up.

But, not long after the roadworks start,

a bigger problem appears on the horizon.

Abnormal load, taking up two lanes.

If he goes onto the M5, we've got a lane closed there.

Oh, no, don't go down there.

Hello, mate, it's Highways Agency.

Just got to let you know you've got an abnormal load

coming down that arm. It's taking up two lanes.

It's going to splat the cones everywhere, isn't it?

He's going to go for it, isn't he?

No chance, he's not going to get through.

To get past the road workers repairing the potholes,

the truck carrying the wide load slows down to a walking pace.

He's close to that barrier. Ooh, well close to the barrier.

That guy could have got there and had to have stopped,

so then you've got the traffic behind him,

which is stopped, as well.

Now what he's caused is quite a fair tailback,

now that'll go back onto the M6.

You know, anything after three o'clock,

you're going to get phenomenal traffic.

You've got school runs coming out, you know,

and this is going to go way back to junction 9 now.

Just because of that abnormal load.

The M6 and other motorways around the West Midlands

cut through a conurbation of cities and towns.

During peak hours, local traffic and commuters flow onto the network,

rushing to and from work.

Hoping for a nice, steady day,

everybody being able to get away to where they need to go safely.

Minimum delays, that's what I'm hoping for.

Tony, come in 5-9-8-9,

we've found an RTC approximately 198 over 6,

in LBS three, received.

'2-1 got reports of four-car RTC, junctions 10A to 10.'

Thank you, we're just going.

Oh, got another job.

Traffic is now restricted to using two lanes instead of four.

We've set the appropriate signals to close the two lanes behind the scene.

It's a Thursday afternoon at five o'clock,

it's extremely heavy congestion at the moment, anyway.

The signal's up now so

most of the public are paying attention to them

and getting out the way.

HORN BLARES

He's oblivious, this guy is.

There you go, well done.

The congestion builds incredibly quickly.

It's estimated a mile a minute,

but I would say on the M6 there, it's probably faster than that.

We've got a vehicle in lane four, it looks like it's just two cars.

I would imagine the crew will attend the scene

and they'll close lanes three and four.

Yes, EMPG are just coming northbound.

They're asking if we can actually stop the carriageway

so then they can access via the exit slip.

Yes, yes. You, stop.

All received. All stopped.

Frank has now brought the entire southbound M6 to a stand still.

The decision to close the motorway, it's a huge decision,

because we know

that it's going to affect thousands and thousands of people.

The cost of freight that's delayed, that might miss a time delivery.

The cost of business meetings that are missed.

The cost of people making their way to airports, ferry terminals,

going on holiday and have to miss that flight or that ferry crossing.

It's at the forefront of our mind that we have to get these incidents

cleared as quickly as possible

to get everything restored back to its normal way.

We've now got approximately 9km of congestion

on the M6 southbound.

This is the congestion.

Quite considerable, really. As far as we can see, continuous traffic.

Now got another...

..incident on the M5.

They're like London buses - they never come in...

They always come in two and threes.

We've got five accidents and two vehicles broken down.

One in lane three.

We've actually got more congestion northbound from people looking over.

OK.

-A jumper, is it?

-Yeah. Possible suicide.

There's a gentleman sitting on the wrong side of the railings

on the overbridge of the M42.

Our job is to stop the traffic.

We've got to position crews north and south. OK.

Got northbound covered.

OK. I'll try and get an East Mids car down.

If we have any incidents on any overbridges,

attempted suicides, possible jumpers,

our procedure is to stop all the traffic

running underneath the bridge.

So we shut both carriageways, north and southbound.

Disruption can be huge for the general public.

On the M6, the Highways Agency traffic officers

have managed to open two of the lanes.

Our pressure is to get the lanes back

and the motorway running as normal as quick as possible.

But to clear the accident,

all three lanes must now be stopped again.

It's a long drive home for a few people tonight.

And, of course, unless they hear it on the radio,

they've got no way of knowing why they're sitting in a queue,

not moving, which leads to exasperation.

Can you remain there, sir, for two seconds, please...

-Yes, no problem, mate.

-..while I throw all the cones across?

They're pulling a vehicle across onto the hard shoulder.

Wait there!

Wait!

Excuse me, we've stopped these for a reason!

Hang on there, please. Don't move.

They're moving a vehicle there.

Hang on!

That's why everybody's stopped.

Is that police on the bridge?

So the police have arrived on the scene now.

In reality, we've got so much to do, you don't have time to panic.

There's so many steps to take,

there's always more precautions you can take this end.

And, again, sadly, it's quite a common occurrence.

Hold on, I think it's all done.

He's the right side of the barrier now.

Yeah, that's received.

He is the correct side of the barrier now.

We're just calling police for an update,

ensure that we can release traffic.

It's good, all over.

By the time the traffic officers stop the M42 carriageway,

the man was already being escorted off the bridge.

It's a great relief when the police

get him back over the right side of the barrier and take him away.

The M42 was only stopped for a few moments,

but the accident on the M6 closed lanes for an hour and a half.

The crew have dealt with it.

The driver has been checked over by an ambulance

and they've opened all the lanes.

Suicide threats can be as often as one a week,

and they've been known to close motorways for long periods of time.

We've had one in our region that's gone on for over 24 hours,

during a really busy period, a summer period,

where people were trying to go on holiday

and there was nothing we could do.

We had all the professionals on the scene

trying to talk this gentleman down and...

..that can get quite hairy, yeah.

The impact on the network is huge.

You then get the thousands of complaints that we're going to get in

and you have to deal with the general public.

On scene, there were reports of the general public

actually shouting at the possible jumper, you know,

to throw himself off the bridge and stop wasting their time.

PCs Karl Davies and Mark Crozier are collision investigators

working with the Central Motorway Police Group.

When a collision or a suicide occurs on the motorway,

it is more significant because of the speeds that are involved.

Vehicles can be completely destroyed.

Bodies can be completely destroyed in a high-speed impact,

which obviously makes our job as investigators a lot more difficult,

to unravel the circumstances surrounding that.

We certainly don't have the fluffy, pink side of policing.

We get the most horrendous part of it all.

We have to deal with and we have to see the most horrendous things.

-That was quite serious then, wasn't it?

-It was.

I need a lie down.

Every day, Karl and Mark deal with the fatal

or life-changing incidents that occur on the road.

It's four years we've been working together - four years this April.

And it's probably been the best four years of my career

so far with the team we've got here.

Mate, I'm welling up, that's beautiful.

We got nicknamed The Twins, didn't we?

I think it's cos we're so good looking - we both look alike.

It's cos we're gorgeous.

If you've witnessed trauma, you've got to get through the day

and humour and taking the mickey out of each other

and anything really in the office is just...

It just diffuses the situation

because you see some horrible things,

and the way you deal it is humour, and that's the way you get round it.

It's 6am on a Saturday morning.

Traffic officers Karen and Colin are on the early shift.

SHE YAWNS

What did I say the other day?

We know a flock of sheep, a herd of cows,

what do you call a group of pigs?

-A swine or a drift...

-Something like that.

And I said, "What do you call a group of traffic officers?"

And I said a moan.

-A moan of traffic officers.

-A whinge.

-ON RADIO:

-'Tango Alpha, Whisky November 2-1. Over.

'We're getting reports of an animal,

'junction 9 to 10 of the M6. Over.'

'1-4 we need a closure on...

'54 and we'll close the main carriageway on 54, received.'

They've shut the main carriageway.

There's another crew shutting the M54 where that joins onto the M6,

and we've just got to wait for the police now to sort that bit out.

A mile-long section of the M6 is now a crime scene.

The police have taken over the motorway.

The Highways Agency staff no longer have control of the road.

So this will be going on for quite some time today,

because they have to find out whether they...whether we know it

was a possible suicide or something.

We don't know if it's a female,

we don't know if it's a male, but it's just sad.

You know, it's not nice.

I wouldn't want to be the guys that have been on road,

because they're there - they've come across it

and they've seen the...

Whereas, we haven't seen as much.

Colin and Karen are heading back to Hilton Park

to have a bit of them time and calm down.

'Colin will be OK, Karen will be in pieces

'cos Karen's...

'I like Karen a lot.

'I mean, we work a lot of shifts together, so I do feel for Karen.

'Colin will be fine, he's a good lad.'

Little bit down, but it's to be expected, I suppose.

All part of the job.

There are good parts and bad parts.

You know, we don't really get to know what happens after this, do we?

-We don't usually get to know...

-No, you don't want all the details,

but it's just nice to know some other things -

who, possibly why.

Eight miles of two different motorways are closed as people

set out on their Saturday morning journeys.

There's already 3km of traffic

queuing to divert off the M6.

It's police-led so they're just going to do the investigation work

and we're waiting for an update as to when it can be reopened.

OK, we're looking now at two hours to reopening.

I'd say it would be longer than that.

-Two hours, we'll be looking at what? 11, 12 o'clock?

-Yeah.

The coroner's now on scene and then, fingers crossed,

straight for leaving in the hour, hour and a half,

we should have the motorway back open.

Getting on for time-wise.

Painfully slow, though, isn't it, if it goes on like this?

I know, but there's nothing that we can do.

I know, it's so frustrating.

You start to get a build-up of shopping traffic now for Walsall.

-Definitely, yeah.

-Football traffic heading north.

Are Walsall at home? I can't imagine that will have much impact.

Arsenal are travelling up to Liverpool.

This is sort of the time where the congestion volume goes up.

The police investigation on the motorway has been carried

out by PCs Davies and Crozier.

It's now five hours since the M6 was first closed.

Well, the motorway operate a clear policy, which is basically

get the motorway up and running as soon as possible.

Our job hinders that in the fact that we could be at the scene,

or at a scene, for a number of hours.

My personal point of view is, until we've got all the evidence

that we need to answer all the questions that the family are

going to ask, I don't care how long the motorway is closed.

The bottom line is, the family come first.

Yeah, I mean we've all been motorists stuck in long tailbacks

and unfortunately you forget that, at the end of it,

somebody is probably crying at home

over just being told the worst news possible.

The whole scene...

We were there for four hours,

and in that time we've identified the gentleman, where he lived,

where his vehicle was, which was nearby, where the point the

gentleman landed on the carriageway was,

who his next of kin were,

and officers were deployed to go to his family as quickly as possible.

With regards to today's incident,

you imagine going into a family home,

telling their loved ones that their next of kin has died.

OFF CAMERA: 'Do you ever get emotional?'

Have I ever got emotional?

Yeah. Not at the time, afterwards.

Yeah.

Control of the closed motorway

has now been handed back to the Highways Agency.

But before drivers can be allowed back onto it,

there is more work to be done.

It's Veolia who are a clean up crew for cleaning up spillages,

and I've been led by them -

if they're happy then we're happy and we'll reopen it.

So, that's all we're waiting on, really, is to clear it up,

because the last thing you want is to be driving through it, unfortunately.

Just a waiting game.

They reckon an hour.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a bit earlier.

But we'll see how they go. Can't hurry it along, so...

'They're estimating an hour.

'I'll see if I can chivvy them along

'but it'll take as long as it takes.'

That's all received. Over.

Another hour!

Did you hear that?

You have to feel for the family and it's a shame.

It was that...

What I think about was that loneliness,

just the two of us there at that instant when it was dark and damp

and there wasn't nobody else there. That was a...

That was the...

I wouldn't say it was a scary place, it was just...

It was just terribly lonely - it felt terribly lonely, you know.

I know it wasn't, cos there were cars coming past.

But it was just that split-second realisation that gets you.

As I say, we've been to fatals before,

but you know you're going to those fatals -

the adrenaline's pumping,

you know what you're going to expect, to a point.

But it was just the shock of finding something that you weren't expecting,

that was...that was the difference.

And you have to deal with it then, but it's very fragile.

And it takes a certain kind of person to handle that, I think.

PHONE RINGS 'Hello?'

You all right, Charlotte?

-'Yeah, are you?'

-Yeah, I'm good, I'm good.

Roads are clear now. Roads are clear.

We had all the traffic this morning and it's died down now.

Are we here?

-No.

-We're not there yet.

They're all just sat in the middle lane.

Ridiculous.

1-8-2.

We'll never win the battle against potholes,

not until the flying car comes in.

'Yeah we have a block on at 6 over 6 on the M5.'

That's received. Poppy Uniform 1-5, do you copy?

We've got somebody coming up the hard shoulder, that's illegal.

2-1, you've got a couple of vehicles coming up

the hard shoulder to you.

When one goes, they'll all go,

there's some more coming now, as well.

People, in their minds, think, "Oh, if he's doing it, then I can do it."

'It's all complete, you can release the block, please. Over.

'Many thanks for your help.'

'That's all received, we're releasing the block now. 2-1 out.'

Biccies, biccies, biccies.

Look, I've told you, you'll go to hell!

That is why I come to work -

the dream of owning one of those one day.

That is a 1967 Mercedes 250 SL, "Pagoda" top.

Modern cars are fabulous, fantastic, they've got so many

qualities that the old cars haven't got, but they don't have that...

style. They don't have that...

They don't exude that panache, that elegance that the old cars do.

Everything around you seems to be going at 90mph,

everything is rush, rush, rush.

For me, if I go away or go out for the day,

the shortest time I spend on the motorway, the easier it is for me.

It's a slab of tarmac, it goes through some gorgeous countryside

so why not take a B road and enjoy the countryside?

The motorway is far too quick.

I find this stressful, to be quite honest with you.

It's a car travelling the wrong way down the motorway.

That's one way of missing the queues.

..meet the men and women who clear up when things go wrong.

Leaks, carrots, parsnips, turnips.

I've seen it all now.

We always get the blame for closing lanes and it's not us

that closes the lanes, it's the accidents.

A lot of the milk has gone into the drains.

We're trying to stop it getting into a pond.

Milk is worse than most stuff.

Last one I did down here was loaded with salmon.

It did smell a little bit, you know.

Every little helps.