Police vehicles anyone?

[JamesPB]

Any other ex or serving UK police officers here?

Here's what I can remember of the vehicles I drove and was authorised to drive during my 13 years in the Met in London.

The first GP (unmarked General Purpose vehicle. Trivia fact: that's where the term Jeep comes from) I drove as a Basic Driver "on duty" (i.e. prior to attendance at Hendon Driving School) was an automatic beige Hillman Hunter which in 1990 was already a veteran of the fleet. Very upright window, and very upright seat and steering wheel. A horrible drive. The next GP I drove was a horrible old all white automatic Vauxhall Cavalier, which was awful. Basics only got to drive gash vehicles that no one else wanted to drive or be seen in driving!

Then after passing my Standard Driver Course at Hendon we were allowed to drive the white Mini Metro and Maestro Pandas with the Met police arms and red/blue jam sandwich stripe down the side.

Also all the various other GPs, Cavaliers and Montegos and the odd old Chrysler (Hillman as was) but especially the favourite pale blue and pale green 1.3 Astras, which went like a bomb! Only the DPG (later the RDPG) were allowed red vehicles back then.

Then I did the Van Driver Course. And that's when the real fun began. Because that was the first time you had blue lights. I used to love throwing the Sherpa around. Initially we only had a bell in the Sherpa just like we had in the pandas. GPs didn't even have that.

Getting through traffic in central London in a GP back then was a combination of sounding horn and flashing main beam at the same time while holding on to the steering wheel. Luckily, most of the general public knew that pale blue and pale green Astras without hubcaps were GPs, so that helped.

Later on Sherpas were fitted with the full 3 sound + bell + PA siren box, which operators (myself included) used to love playing about with switching sounds rapidly to make a weird mobile blue flashing soundtrack.

At this time, early 90s, there were still a few dark blue Ford Transits on the fleet & they were fun but twice as heavy as the Sherpas.

I served on the white Transit carriers with the DSU in the mid 80s (Just before the DSU and the SPG (remember Blair Peach?) got disbanded. And the new TSG took over)
But I only ever ferried them to and from the station or to the garage at Alperton, never in anger so to speak.
On a shout we'd often play music over the PA in combination with the blue lights rather than use the sirens. I remember Hawaii five 0 was always effective in central London and always raised a smile or two from motorists and pedestrians alike. That said, Ride of the Valkyries played going into Tottenham, Brixton and Notting Hill wasn't really appreciated

Something else I drove, which even in the early 90s still retained it's 1970s sky blue panda colour, was the Ford Transit control vehicle with the perspex observation dome on the roof, huge loudspeakers, blue lights and the chequered blue and white band around the base of the dome. Jesus we had fun in that thing.

The next stage was when I passed the new Response Driver level and could then drive more powerful Astras with lights and sirens.

Although not an Area Car driver (Never wanted to be one, I was having more fun with a crew in the various vans and buses), some of the Area Cars I ferried were the various models of the Rover SD1 (with it's square steering wheel), a V6 Peugoet (piece of crap, about as safe at speed as a paper crash helmet), an MG Montego, an MG Maestro, and a Carlton.

Only van drivers were allowed to ferry Area Cars and in the absence of an Area Car driver also prisoners' cars.

This might be of interest to someone.

[Western SMT]

Great bit of history.

'On a shout we'd often play music over the PA'

What modern tune would you play now?

[G-CPTN]

Keep it coming, James - interesting read.
Perhaps you could translate some of the TLAs for us civilians?

[JamesPB]

Originally Posted by G-CPTN

Keep it coming, James - interesting read.
Perhaps you could translate some of the TLAs for us civilians?

Sorry mate, I did that deliberately hoping some other coppers were reading.

DSU = District Support Unit - which was the local (i.e police district) public order police up to 87 when they were disbanded at the same time as the
SPG = Special Patrol Group - which worked out of the Yard. The SPG had access to firearms and dealt with serious public disorder and serious crime, they were in a way almost a uniformed Flying Squad. But like the DSUs the SPG also worked in plain clothes on occasion.

It was quite funny on occasion turning up with lights & sirens going on a marked carrier and 13 hairy arsed coppers jump out in jeans, T shirts and trainers wearing Met Police baseball caps and police armbands.

There was a DSU on each of the 32 Police districts, which roughly equal the 32 London Boroughs.

At that time DSUs were using Ford Transits as carriers.
A crew on a carrier was 1+12, in other words 1 sgt + 12 PCs
2 of which were the Area Car drivers for the carrier.
Also at that time the DSUs and the SPG were the only fully Shield Trained
units that permanently carried shields, roit helmets, flameproof riot overalls and fire extinguishers, and we all received medic training.


In 87 -the SGP and all the DSUs were disbanded and the
TSG = Territorial Support Group was formed.

Unlike the SPG, the TSG didn't work out of the Yard and unlike the DSU they didn't work out of a District they worked on an Area (i.e. territorial) basis. So each of the 6 Met Police Areas had a TSG force of several carriers.

The TSG, like the DSU and SPG before them were on call round the clock.
When I was on the DSU - we had three carriers on B District (Kensington & Chelsea) Bravo 30, Bravo 31 and Bravo 32.

Depending on what shift you were on, earlies, lates or nights depended on what call sign you took.

DPG = Diplomatic Protection Group - The uniformed bods in flat caps standing outside embassies, consulates and MPs houses, armed (back then) with only
a S & W .38 - They were the group that used both the marked and unmarked red cars and vans.
RP = Royalty Protection - Uniformed armed police in helmets guarding the palaces.

At some point in the late 80s early 90s, I can't remember exactly these two combined to create the:

RDPG = Royalty & Diplomatic Protection Group

In the early 90s it all went 9mm Sig Sauer (sour...get it? ) and H & K

ARU = Armed Response Unit - these tooled up areas cars with a crew of three first appeared in the late 80s/early 90s. At that time their 9mm pistols, H & K SMGs and shotguns were locked in a safe in the car. They also worked on an Area basis

So they would take a call to an incident, turn up, and then radio in for permission to open the box and arm up. Obviously for things like armed robberies that were still ongoing they would got permisison en route and tool up before arriving on scene.


HTH (hope that helps)

(edited for spelling mistakes and the fact that I incorrectly called the ARU ASU)

[G-CPTN]

Thanks, James, very interesting.

[JamesPB]

Originally Posted by Western SMT

Great bit of history.

'On a shout we'd often play music over the PA'

What modern tune would you play now?

Probably "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse, to get the adrenalin pumping and get the boys fired up for a ruck, which was usually what happened when a DSU turned up on scene....Christ, I miss those days!

Here's a live version -Wembley 2007 http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=j8WP7aOD_9Q

And here's the orignal video version http://se.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sBOsh-vyI

It gets me going anyway!