this website is not owned by the Highways Agency. This site is unofficial and features the views of Traffic Officers which are their own personal opinions and personal views only.
| | NOTICE this website is not owned by the Highways Agency. This site is unofficial and features the views of Traffic Officers which are their own personal opinions and personal views only. |
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 HATO CENTRAL!join us on the forums for top HATO chat, advice and the latest news! Our forums regularly see the latest rumours, fears and worries of the H.A guys and gals who hit the UK's motorways each and every day. | |||||||||
| [text blocked] means that words which occurred in the interview have been withheld in the security interests either of the individual speaking, or the national traffic site itself, please do not ask for these words to be revealed as more than likely you will receive no reply at all or a curt reply telling you what to do [interrupting] the person speaking now, talked over the one before [laughing] chortling sniggering or cackling are all included in the broad term ‘laughing’ |
falkor: Good morning!
Keokeo: morning
falkor: Sunday morning in fact
Keokeo: sorry?
falkor: Sunday morning
Keokeo: Sunday morning? 
falkor: yeah
Keokeo: what about it?
falkor: oh bloody hell it’s Saturday isn’t it?
Keokeo: yes
falkor: I don’t know why I said that
Keokeo: [laughing]
falkor: so …. Something’s happened to your computer I understand
Keokeo: yeah it’s dead. It died on me completely
falkor: flippin heck
Keokeo: I’m not impressed, because normally Saturday morning, I’d be on there – so I’m bored stiff now
falkor: what went wrong with it?
Keokeo: I don’t know, it just won’t power up, my son had a look at it last night and he said there’s something wrong with the power – I’ve had the power on and turned it on but there’s just nothing at all. Checked the fuses, turned it off at the socket and the mains and everything, but there’s just nothing there at all
falkor: that’s so unusual
Keokeo: yeah yeah
falkor: do you think it might have overheated?
Keokeo: it’s possible I don’t know. My son was just going out when I got in from work last night, so he didn’t really want to spend much time looking at it. He said he’ll have a look later. I’ve been looking in the paper, it’s not too dear to get a replacement but we’ll see
falkor: £500
Keokeo: yeah you can get a decent one for that
falkor: but you’ve lost all your data
Keokeo: well hopefully he might be able to get that for me. That’s the only problem and funnily enough, he did do some work on it a couple of weeks back for me, so every sort of website I’d used regularly, NT and the soccer football one I go on etc. I wrote down all the details
falkor: did you?
Keokeo: I wrote down all my passwords – so I’ve already got them all written down
falkor: that is sooooo rare, people just never normally bother to do that
Keokeo: well I wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for him sorting the computer out for me about a fortnight ago and he said “Write everything down just in case we lose it”
falkor: I’ve fallen foul of that myself – there’s been 2 or 3 websites that I’ve gone back to after a couple of months of not going on them and then I just couldn’t remember what password I used
Keokeo: yeah we’ve had a couple of lads on here haven’t we, we’ve had fogman a mate of mine who had to come back as ********
falkor: oh
Keokeo: and ******* had to do it – he forgot his password
falkor: we’ve actually got a scheme to counter that as well!
Keokeo: have you, well they’re both back on anyway
falkor: we’ve got a “VerifyID scheme” and I dreamt this up last year, because this was happening over on national-PCSOs a fair bit and I thought “it’s such a shame that people have to lose their original identity, it’s so unnecessary”
Keokeo: yeah?
falkor: so I announced this new scheme and what it is – is, it takes all your details – there’s a program and it provides a ‘graphic proof’ because you choose 2 specific graphics and you email it through to me and you keep this “graphic identity key” in your computer safely somewhere, OR you print it out – or something like that, then later on when all this happens, you’ve got that back up and you can prove who you are!
Keokeo: well my son put firefox on ours. In there, there is a thing that you can go into which can show you all your passwords, which is alright if your computer’s working
falkor: firefox?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: why did you choose that?
Keokeo: it was my son, he works with computers
falkor: so you haven’t got Internet Explorer
Keokeo: I was on that originally and then he put firefox on
falkor: so you’re looking at the forums through that
Keokeo: yes
falkor: because I’ve got a bit of a battle actually, trying to make sure that the forums display properly in firefox, because Internet Explorer’s a lot more forgiving, whereas firefox is not
Keokeo: well I don’t seem to have a problem
falkor: that’s great and I’m glad to hear you say that, because a number of times when I’ve modified stuff on the forums, for instance say when you press ‘Return’ on a computer it inserts a new line
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: well there’s stuff like that where firefox won’t do it, so you end up with a panel that is sideways onto another panel that should have dropped down, where in Internet Explorer it’ll sort all that out for you.
Keokeo: no no I don’t think I’ve had any problems at all
falkor: oh well if you do see anything strange, can you let me know?
Keokeo: yeah sure and I think there was a thread on this wasn’t there
falkor: was there?
Keokeo: oh it might have been on another site
Keokeo: well they were saying there, on firefox if you go into “tools” ->> “options” and go into “security,” there’s a box and you can put in all your passwords and all your usernames and they always come up fine for me, which is great when a computer’s working, because if I do forget any I just go in there
falkor: I didn’t know about that, that sounds like a good idea actually, I like the sound of that
Keokeo: the problem being like, the situation at the minute when it’s crashed, but luckily I’ve got them all anyway
falkor: well I tell you, I think you’re a very rare person writing all that lot down, 99% of people feel overconfident, they think “oh I know what the password is” and all this and to be quite honest, we shouldn’t have passwords that are that easy – we need passwords with lower character case letters ….
Keokeo: [interrupting] which is why I had to write them down, because I use like 5 basic passwords, but I use different permutations of lower case, upper case and numbers in here and there, so not one site has the same password
falkor: yeah I’ve started to do that because before, I just had very easy passwords
Keokeo: [interrupting] well I heard the story the other day of a T.O who put a padlock and chain on something and a couple of T.Os went in there and they were trying to work out this combination and one of them said, “It’ll be a bloke so it’ll be easy.” They put his collar number in and it opened up straight away
falkor: you’re having a laugh!
Keokeo: yes yes it opened straight away, first number they tried, collar number and it opened
falkor: that is crazy
Keokeo: yep
falkor: anyway … talking about the forums, you decided to have our most up to date template “subMerged.”
Keokeo: right
falkor: You’ve got the one with the little submarine at the top.
Keokeo: that’s right
falkor: have you seen any of the others?
Keokeo: not off the top of my head no
falkor: so all you know about is “subMerged”? You don’t know anything else do you?
Keokeo: no
falkor: well I think that’s probably the case for virtually every other member on the site – I mean, that basically was the case when you joined? That was set on “subMerged” when you joined wasn’t it?
Keokeo: I believe so yes
falkor: so you just went along with the flow didn’t you?
Keokeo: more than likely yeah
falkor: you know it doesn’t really fit with the “traffic officer theme,” all that water you know. But I chose it because I thought it looks absolutely fantastic – but when you’ve got some news items in the middle there, have you noticed how squashed it looks?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: you’ve noticed that have you?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: that is the one downfall of the whole thing, because it will not spread across the whole page, it’s got those 2 columns on either side impinging on it y’know
Keokeo: now that said, there was something that you put on there the other week, that did take up more than a page, I had to scroll it to get the whole page in
falkor: oh no!! that’s even worse
Keokeo: it was only 1 thread – it was the first page of the thread
falkor: oh right
Keokeo: I went into the next page – well the way it was on my screen I had to scroll it across to get it, but then when I went to the second page, that was all right
falkor: oh my god [laughing]
Keokeo: I don’t know what thread it was – I don’t know, somebody had put something up there because we had this on another site, I go on a football tipping site,it’s just a little hobby and some of the guys on there were putting avatars on that were far far too big
falkor: I hate that
Keokeo: it was screwing the pages up completely
falkor: oh I hate that, that’s so stupid isn’t it?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: well our maximum is 105 at the moment and I think that’s about right
Keokeo: yeah yeah
falkor: I always used to go for the 50 or 60 width avatars but I’m now looking at them thinking they’re too small now
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: anyway I did read one of your posts the other day, about that e-bay the HATO car – the Toyota Landcruiser, you were talking about it weren’t you? Do you remember?
Keokeo: I did read it but it was the guys selling the stickers wasn’t it?
falkor: but if you went onto e-bay because I followed that link it goes through to this model of a Toyota Landcruiser made up in HATO colours – did you see it?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: absolutely brilliant
Keokeo: yeah good model
falkor: I couldn’t believe that
Keokeo: there are some actually and I don’t know if they’re the ones that the Highways Agency have had made as promotional things and they’re now collectors items
falkor: yeah well there’s only four of them
Keokeo: was there only four?
falkor: yeah that was 1 of 4 it said and it was £41
Keokeo: well what I was going to say was there’s a guy at our RCC who won this Christmas quiz and one of those was a prize and there have been people offering him all sorts of money for it and I think the last offer was about £40
falkor: what is it 3” long?
Keokeo: yeah not much more
falkor: very nice looking though, so detailed
falkor: I saw it on the post and I followed the link through, luckily it worked because I’ve gotta say I’m not a fan of e-bay are you?
Keokeo: I do bits and bobs, I have bought stuff off there and I keep saying that I’m going to sell stuff on there but it’s only if I’m looking for something in particular. I’m looking for a new camera at the minute and I have been looking on there. I don’t really want to get one sent from Hong Kong for the sake of saving £20 sort of thing
falkor: oh this is my mentality entirely I totally agree with you
falkor: but you’ve bought a few things on there and no horror stories
Keokeo: no horror stories no not at all and nothing big, nothing for big money, bits and bobs, no no horror stories
falkor: I was also reading that you were talking about your maglight torch because you had some problems you smashed it or something didn’t you
Keokeo: oh the bulbs yes, that was a laugh that was absolutely ridiculous, we still haven’t got any bulbs
falkor: but you find that you use your torch do you?
Keokeo: oh yeah on lates, if you get out of the vehicle on lates or on nights you take a torch with you yeah I mean it can have other uses obviously but we won’t go down that path
falkor: [laughing]
Keokeo: but yeah you know I think we all have those little clip on ones on our jackets now which are quite good anyway
falkor: oh I know the ones yeah
Keokeo: it’s good if you’ve got an abandoned for just checking out the bankings and things like that with it
falkor: it’s got to be pretty powerful to do that though hasn’t it?
Keokeo: well yeah they are quite good – I haven’t done it for the last couple of years, but I worked down at Silverstone for the grand prix on security on nights so I’ve had a maglite for a few years from that. Basically all we do is the night before the race we check all the fences, if there are any holes in the fence they try and get in. We just patrol round the track or whatever and I’ve had it for years using it on that, they have quite a good beam on them for checking holes in the fences
falkor: bloody hell you’ve done well to have that for years haven’t you?
Keokeo: I am my personal one yeah I’ve been doing that for 10 years now
falkor: so you’ve got 2 jobs then
Keokeo: no no, I do it just 3 days, once a year
falkor: ah right
Keokeo: it’s just for the grand prix
falkor: just for 3 days a year
Keokeo: yes just for the grand prix. I’ve got a load of mates who are prison officers and 1 of their bosses organises the night time security down at Silverstone for the grand prix so I jumped on board 10 year ago they were looking for someone and I said yeah I’ll have some of that we work at night and then we get to watch all the racing all day for nothing
falkor: but that’s a tough job isn’t it
falkor: I wouldn’t want that
Keokeo: you don’t get much sleep, it’s more of a boy’s jolly for the weekend and like we always joke about it a fortnight later you get a cheque in the post “Bloody hell we’ve got paid for it as well!”
falkor: oh well why not?
falkor: you’re an ex driver trainer as well aren’t you?
Keokeo: yes ex instructor
falkor: what standard?
Keokeo: grade 5
falkor: I haven’t got a clue what that means
Keokeo: well I worked on normal pupils cars but I also worked on the ‘National Driver Improvements Scheme’ and ‘Speed Awareness’ courses for South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire Police and Councils
falkor: so you could still do that now if you wanted to
Keokeo: I’ve still got my badge yeah yeah
falkor: so would you ever think about going back to it?
Keokeo: no I don’t think so, I must admit doing 6 on 3 off I was going to consider doing a bit part time but I just can’t be bothered
falkor: so just to clarify this you’re talking about giving people driving lessons to pass their test
Keokeo: yes
falkor: you did that for a number of years?
Keokeo: ten years
falkor: ten years? So you were just sick and tired of it?
Keokeo: yeah I got fed up – there’s too many at it – it’s very very cutthroat
falkor: well did you use your own car? Or did you hire a car?
Keokeo: I had my own car
falkor: did any of the pupils crunch it?
Keokeo: no not the pupils no I always found the biggest problem and most driving instructors I spoke to said the same it’s getting rear ended at roundabouts, people coming up to the roundabout mainly looking to the right not checking that you’ve moved away in front of them they see a gap and thinking you’ve gone BANG
falkor: yeah that’s very popular
falkor: Another thing that you were talking about on the forums was the CSMA which I have never heard of in my life
Keokeo: have you not?
falkor: I’ve never heard of it because the police are BLOCKED FROM IT aren’t they??!
Keokeo: are they?
falkor: the Police and the NHS and there’s various others are flippin BLOCKED. If you type in Highways Agency on that CSMA it says “Welcome with open arms what is your role in the Highways Agency?” and you’re IN! But if you type in Police they just log you off, they’re not interested
Keokeo: yeah but are the Police classed as civil servants?
falkor: well obviously as far as CSMA are concerned …..
Keokeo: [interrupting] well it is the Civil Service Motor Assoc – well there’s 2 things to it 1) it’s free to join, which I thought was quite good and 2) the magazine is a very very good magazine I’ve found there’s lots of decent offers and competitions and things and they ask £10 a year for the magazine or if you join Brittania Rescue get the magazine free
falkor: how many magazines a year?
Keokeo: I believe it’s 1 a month
falkor: that is brilliant isn’t it?
Keokeo: great for a tenner
falkor: brilliant
Keokeo: as I say it’s not a bad magazine there’s some good articles on motoring mostly and holidays leisure stuff and although I haven’t got my insurance through ‘em, I know a few lads at work have got insurance done at a discount and they’ve got the Brittania cover that’s what I put in the thread the other day when we were talking about the AA and the RAC I get £180 of RAC cover for forty odd quid
falkor: that’s great isn’t it? How did you find out about the CMSA and how were you attracted to it?
Keokeo: I think when we first joined the Highways Agency a magazine came round to the outstation I think they were doing a recruitment campaign with all the new T.Os because I know the first couple of months we all got a magazine trying to get us to join and then I just google’d it and found it on the net and had a look and thought well it’s for nothing
falkor: And how did you find out about nationalTraffic?
Keokeo: somebody emailed me the calendar
falkor: did they?
Keokeo: yeah come from a T.O and he emailed it to quite a few of us so then I went on the link at the bottom
falkor: My God I never heard about this
Keokeo: yeah there’s quite a few of us on here because of that
falkor: that’s made my day that has!
Keokeo: and I can’t remember how he got it originally whether he’d been googling and he joined NT after me, I think I was one of the first to join
falkor: oh right
falkor: you’ve got the Blues Brothers avatar haven’t you?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: you’re crazy on them aren’t you?
Keokeo: oh yeah
falkor: that is such a .. .. they did a second film didn’t they?
Keokeo: yeah
falkor: but I’ve gotta say the first one you just can’t ….
Keokeo: [interrupting] the second one was nowhere near as good the young guy plays a good part but the first one was the original and best
falkor: I tell you what I would love to see the full … you know they show you clips of the music they’re playing on stage because some of the tracks they’re playing obviously are covers but they do ‘em SOOOOO well – I love those
Keokeo: if you get the boxset of the 2 films there is another disc with it with a lot more music on
falkor: because y’know they show you them actually blasting away on stage don’t they? And I am ALWAYS left with the feeling that I just want to see the whole performance I am just so glued to it “Gimme some Lovin” was one
Keokeo: yeah yeah
falkor: But the actual story of it is so funny isn’t it?
Keokeo: yeah and there are quite a few tribute bands around and I saw a good one a couple of years back in Doncaster that were quite good
falkor: Really?
Keokeo: yeah yeah
falkor: The bit that gets it for me is when they’re up on stage and the manager of the pub comes along to ‘em and says right this is the bill for all the beer and it’s actually more money than what they’re getting for the gig ….
Keokeo: [interrupting] if you go on YouTube it actually does clips of all the funny bits
falkor: Really?
Keokeo: I couldn’t be bothered to get the film out to see the 106 mile to Chicago my digicheck
falkor: I saw that yeah
Keokeo: so I went on there and I found it on there
falkor: so you’ve obviously been on YouTube a bit have you seen any motorway clips on there?
Keokeo: oh yeah, seen a few of them
falkor: any good?
Keokeo: only the ones that are on the site really I’ve not found any others
falkor: I do love YouTube gotta say I’m a big fan of YouTube definitely but you’ve now got google video as well and they can display double the size of video that you can see on YouTube it’s a lot bigger and it’s a lot clearer as well. You can be lucky sometimes with YouTube I think you get used to the poor quality of the videos on YouTube. When I first went on it I was absolutely horrified at the quality of the videos I thought it was dreadful but I think in the end you just get accustomed to it but on google it’s not top quality but it’s certainly higher quality than YouTube and they seem to be crossfeeding each other now these 2
Keokeo: I think most of them do though don’t they, I know things I’ve found I’ve gone somewhere else and found the same clip, I think what it is the people that post ‘em generally post ‘em on all of ‘em
falkor: ah right oh, fair comment
falkor: So you went over to Bradford the other day and saw the media museum
Keokeo: yeah I hadn’t been for a few years and I was on my 3 off, the wife was working so I thought ‘what shall we do?’ so I went there, and then in the afternoon I came back to the Royal Armouries in Leeds.
falkor: well I found it very interesting to read what they’ve got on display at that media museum which I’d never heard of
Keokeo: have you not? It used to be the Museum of Photography Film and Television but they changed the name to the Media museum. Yeah it was quite interesting on the Gerry Anderson thread, they’ve got all these private booths in the television section
falkor: bloody hell you could spend all day in there then
Keokeo: you can watch television clips they’ve got books with thousands of them in, they bang it in the old computer and you go and sit in the booth and watch your own programme for half an hour of whatever
falkor: which do you watch?
Keokeo: I didn’t bother actually – because they’ve got a big Imax 3D cinema there as well
falkor: oh right
Keokeo: so I went into a couple of them instead
falkor: what was on?
Keokeo: I saw the 3D, there was one about a space station showing you all the crews that have gone up the different crews. The American crews, the Russian crews and the different bits they’ve taken up to build it then I saw another one about under the sea, the ocean, octopus and different fish and stuff like that
falkor: I’ve got to say that I do love IMAX I’ve been there once and it’s so good isn’t it?
Keokeo: yeah I mean this one they showed a trailer for a new one that’s coming which I’ve got to go and see, it’s Florida in the everglades – it shows you this gator coming out of the screen and it just looks like it’s coming towards you it’s absolutely amazing. Massive
falkor: anyway you’ve made a list of bugbears that you’re fed up with on the motorway: Pedestrians on the motorway that’s for the Police to deal with, debris on the motorway then the boys in blue have been and gone and done it and you’re flippin assigned to it, babysitting vehicles awaiting recovery at damage only accidents, is there anything else that you missed off the list there?
Keokeo: I don’t think so
falkor: those are the big 3
Keokeo: oh yeah those are the 3 and BiB attending Non injury RTC's
falkor: [laughing]
Keokeo: y’know non-injury RTC we’re going, next thing you hear it on the radio “police are here” I mean what are they ON? It really annoys me I suppose I’d better be very careful what I say about that.
falkor: [laughing]
Keokeo: it pisses me off, I know we’re here to help but we should be working together
falkor: [laughing]
Keokeo: and we have a great relationship with our police I’ve got to say – we have an absolutely amazing relationship especially over East because they’re so thin on the ground but just things like that annoy me – y’know how anybody can ever get done for speeding on a motorway I do not know because there’s never any Police on ‘em
falkor: no I’ve got to say I haven’t seen a Police car on a motorway for a very long time now, they just don’t seem to be there now, I quite agree with you
Keokeo: no no
falkor: anyway it’s been a pleasure talking to you
Keokeo: okeydokey
falkor: your time’s up, thanks for phoning through and I’m glad you managed to make it
Keokeo: no worries and I’ll be glad when I’ve got my computer up and running and I will be able to see what’s been said
falkor: good luck on that
Keokeo: ok
falkor: all the best
Keokeo: cheers buddy
falkor: bye
| # | site | member | interview date | GO TO | includes |
| 1 | national Traffic | Race Track | 27.3.07 | V I E W | ever pressed the emergency button? risk of litigation on RRBs 12½% shift allowance or 20% shift allowance PITO | the site before NT national-PCSOs early days |
| 2 | national-PCSOs | alihowe | 27.3.07 | V I E W | dogs and cats | street wardens | 3 litre Capri | Granada 2.8 Ghia Lotus as a summer project judo for PCSOs going over to the dark side heavy confrontation | actually doing crime reports |
| 3 | national-PCSOs |  GlynB | 27.3.07 | V I E W | UNISON PCSO working group Drum and Bugle Corps | South Yorkshire Police Band PCSOs can go onto age 65? | membership of UNISON Met Police's PCSOs are gradually replacing Station Officers lower pay for PCSOs? | zig zag lines PCSOs being issued with batons etc |
| 4 | national Traffic | mondeoman | 28.3.07 | V I E W | Gist logistics | Prospect, union Police ride ons verbal abuse in the course of your duties the site before NT | we’ll be traffic police get rid of all the PCSOs |
| 5 | national Traffic | Tricky | 30.3.07 | V I E W | Major Incident Training Dartford River Crossing Police cooking | Accuracy Brevity and Clarity Muttley in the hi-vis French | spam | Dr Who |
| 6 | national Traffic | pongolad | 30.3.07 | V I E W | caravans | legless on the motorway United Nations Bosnia TSCOs tropical fish |
| 7 | national Traffic | Keokeo | 31.3.07 | V I E W | the problem of passwords and usernames firefox V IE | subMerged H.A. model of Toyota Landcruiser Silverstone grand prix | night security maglite | driving instructor | CSMA | Blues Brothers Bradford's media museum | a windy Thursday |
| 8 | national-PCSOs | micky | 1.4.07 | V I E W | 'PCSO observers' | s59 seizing a car offduty | 'pointless taxi productions' challenging people to races access to crimint and CRIS PCSOs being posted to the front office the 2004 survey! |
| 9 | national-PCSOs | CIDB | 1.4.07 | V I E W | Kew Gardens 2005 | £80 PNDs PCSO ANPR operator | seizing for no insurance XBOX 360 | shoplifters going to the gym 4 times a week a power to detain, but without using force UNISON | handcuffing someone |
| 10 | national Traffic | Guinness Man | 1.4.07 | V I E W | police rideons | incident support units Traffic Officer grade assessors caravanning Rover TC and the Rover 3500S union | bank holiday working |
| 11 | national Traffic | TheWanderer | 30.3.07 | V I E W | WorldWidePolice | emergencyservicesonline Dartford River Crossing Police rollercoasters YouTube and the motorway videos cover shifts | John Child car stickers and metal badges |
| # | site | member | interview date | GO TO | includes |
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