8:00am Sunday 22nd November 2009
By Ben Perrin
IN his 22 years of policing traffic PC Glenn Powell, 49, has seen it all.
From pulling motorists over for driving while playing the trumpet, women putting the finishing touches to their make-up and men shaving, the experienced cop is still amazed at what people get up to when driving.
PC Powell has been faced with a driver who tried to pull a knife on him and a drunk farmer firing a shotgun out of his moving vehicle.
The fastest speeder PC Powell has caught is at 143mph with the most amount of seizures of unroadworthy vehicles standing at six in one day.
He has also attended many serious and fatal road traffic collisions on Swindon’s roads during the last two decades.
“It’s amazing what people do at the wheel, and that’s without even taking using mobile phones into account – 65 per cent of accidents happen because of speeding or drivers not paying due care and attention to the road,” he said.
After a request was accepted by PC Powell, a father of two, the Swindon Advertiser joined him for a patrol.
PC Powell, a former RAF officer, first showed us what hi-tech equipment he uses every day.
There are four cameras attached to his unmarked BMW three-litre car. Two face the road ahead and one captures footage of any passengers sitting in the back of the vehicle.
A small screen can record vehicles travelling in front of PC Powell and monitor the speed they are travelling.
Swindon traffic police are also piloting a scheme, which sees a camera attached to the side of a car.
This is an attempt to catch drivers making calls on their mobile phones.
An automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) device can detect if a driver does not have insurance, tax, MoT certificate or if the car has been reported stolen.
One such Volkswagen car was flagged up in Park South as not being insured.
The 25-year-old driver from Pinehurst quickly sped up when PC Powell clocked him.
A quick chase ended up in the cul-de-sac of Stedham Walk and the three occupants stopped and made a run for it. But the driver soon returned to his car and admitted the offence. He was given a £200 fine and charged an additional fee of £150 for a garage to release the vehicle. He also got six points on his licence.
In just a few hours PC Powell had issued £60 speeding tickets and three penalty points to two men driving at an average speed of 98mph, between junction 16 and 15, on the M4 motorway.
He followed behind keeping his distance and clocked the cars. Then he flashed blue lights and got them to pull over to the hard shoulder to suffer their punishment.
Also £60 fines were dished out to two people for not wearing their seatbelts in Swindon. Another fine was given to a woman who had parked to unload on a pedestrian crossing in Commercial Road, New Town.
PC Powell is set to appear in the television series Brit Cops.
The traffic officer, based at Gablescross Police Station, was filmed by TV cameras for a month this summer.
The programme will feature PC Powell attending various road traffic collisions and his involvement in high speed chases around Swindon and Wiltshire.
The series will be broadcast on Bravo and Virgin 1 on Tuesday, January 5, 2010.
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