The answer came in the form of a borrowed truck from Scania (Great Britain) Limited. Sporting full Battenberg livery, officers used the vehicle to patrol the motorways and video wrongdoers caught in the act. So effective was the idea, dubbed Operation Parochial, that it soon attracted the eye of TV with, firstly, a Police, Camera, Action! crew documenting the work of the team, rapidly followed by the producers of the BBC’s Motorway Cops series. With this amount of interest being generated, we decided the time had come for Scene Scania to go undercover and once more join the CMPG for a day. By now, the original liveried vehicle has been returned and alternatives used instead. That’s because Operation Parochial does not run continuously. According to the police, it doesn’t need to as an occasional outing for the programme is sufficient to propagate the urban myth (which the police happily do absolutely nothing to dispel) that the boys in blue are out there patrolling in their truck somewhere. During our visit, on a particularly bleak and wet day, a vehicle had been provided by Scania Truck Rental. PC Angus Nairn, a former commercial vehicle driver himself and now one of the most experienced members of the CMPG truck team, reiterated what he told us last time:
“When Operation Parochial started, we quickly discovered truck drivers on their mobiles, driving with their feet up on the dashboard, cooking meals, using laptops and watching DVDs. It is actually quite scary when you think about it. These guys are simply not in control. Not only are they breaking the law, it’s just plain dangerous.” Operation Parochial functions by having a two-officer team in the truck – one driving, one operating the video camera – backed by a third officer in a patrol car. The officers in the truck drive up alongside commercial vehicles and, if any law breaking appears to be taking place, they video the offender. Once evidence has been captured on film, they call up the patrol car which pursues and passes the suspect vehicle and leads it to a safe stopping place using the ‘follow me’ sign in its rear window. During our visit, PC Nairn was in the car with PC Steve Rounds driving the truck, assisted by PC Katie Pring on camera. During his time with CMPG, PC Rounds has seen everything described by PC Nairn and more. “It’s unbelievable,” he confirms. “We’ve found drivers boiling the old fashioned whistling kettles on gas stoves, steering with their knees and one finger while they’ve got their cruise control
“We quickly discovered truck drivers on their mobiles, driving with their feet up on the dashboard, cooking meals, using laptops and watching DVDs”
98 • SCene SCania