INTERNATIONAL TRUCK STOP
Inspector Richard Wenham heads up London’s Metropolitan Police Commercial Vehicle Unit.
BLUES AND TWOS Story by Will Shiers
Will Shiers spends the day with London’s Metropolitan Police Force, and its unmarked DAF CF truck.
I
nspector Richard Wenham heads up London’s Metropolitan Police Commercial Vehicle Unit and reckons he’s in his dream job. “As a child, I loved watching CHiPs and Smokey and the Bandit, so I either wanted to be a motorbike police officer or a lorry driver. Little did I know I’d find a job where I could combine both of these passions,” he tells me when I spend a day
72 New Zealand Trucking
Photos by Tomlee.gallery
shadowing him and some of his team of 60 officers. But today, he won’t be using either his motorbike or heavy-goods vehicle licence. Instead, he and I will be travelling around the M25, London’s orbital motorway, in an unmarked BMW 5-Series, following a relatively anonymous DAF CF450. But while it looks like just another white CF, there’s far more to this truck than meets the eye. This is the Met’s latest weapon in its fight against distracted drivers. Police use the truck for creeping up on unsuspecting drivers who are doing things they shouldn’t be doing behind the wheel, while a pair of GoPros in the windows record their wrongdoing as July 2022
evidence. Although the most common misdemeanour is using a mobile phone while driving, Inspector Wenham and his team have recorded some incredible things over the years. “We’ve caught truck drivers eating a meal on the steering wheel with a knife and fork, watching a football match on an iPad and using a portable kettle to make a cup of tea while driving along,” he says. While the police still find the occasional truck driver using a phone, these days car drivers are increasingly getting caught. And when they are, they receive six penalty points and a £200 ($385) fine. To put this into perspective, once you reach 12 points, you face a driving ban of at least
six months. “They think they are invincible and invisible because they’re holding it on their thigh and tapping away under the window line,” Inspector Wenham tells us. The truck is shared between the unit’s four London sites, and is on the road for five days a week. Today it’s been driven by PC Martin Davis and will patrol the southern section of the M25. Although the truck has blue lights on the front and rear and can act independently, it’s generally supported by an unmarked police car. Hence us following in the BMW. The best condition for catching phone users is slow-moving rush-hour traffic. The truck will sit in the
