Traffic Cops

This article is about the BBC documentary series. For the UK policing function, see Road policing unit. For various police officers with traffic duties, see traffic officer. For various policing units with traffic duties, see traffic police.
Traffic Cops

Current Traffic Cops and Motorway Cops title cards
Genre Motoring / Police
Directed by Bruce Lippold
Narrated by Steven Mackintosh
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language(s) English
No. of series 11
No. of episodes 102 (as of 21 January 2016) (list of episodes)
Production
Location(s) United Kingdom
Running time 60 minutes
Production company(s) BBC
Release
Original network BBC One, BBC One HD, BBC Three, BBC Three HD
Picture format 16:9
Original release 18 March 2003 (2003-03-18) – present
Chronology
Related shows Car Wars
External links
Website

Traffic Cops is a British documentary series on BBC One which follows Road Policing Units (traffic officers) from various UK police forces. The current series follows Officers from the Roads Policing Group and Road Crime Team from North Yorkshire Police. Previous series have followed the Yorkshire & The Humber Regional Roads Crime Team, West Yorkshire Police, Cheshire Constabulary, Hampshire Constabulary, Humberside Police, South Wales Police, South Yorkshire Police, Sussex Police, Bedfordshire Police and Hertfordshire Constabulary. There is a separate spin-off series, billed Traffic Cops Specials, entitled Motorway Cops, because the main focus is on police patrolling Britain's Motorways. Traffic Cops has consistently been one of the most watched factual series on UK television. Due to its prime time BBC1 slot, Traffic Cops' viewing figures generally are many times larger than other UK police TV programmes. Both series are made by Folio Productions, a subsidiary of Mentorn Media, who also made a separate BBC One series called Car Wars, which followed police teams who dealt exclusively with car crime rather than traffic offences. In 2016 a new series of Traffic Cops began and for the first time in the shows history it was first aired on BBC Three and not on BBC One.

About

Traffic Cops shows what is involved in the day-to-day role of a traffic officer and the incidents they come across. The attraction of the show being the many strange and amusing members of the public the Police encounter in the course of their work. It often touches on genuine drama and serious issues when officers visit accidents where people are seriously or fatally injured. This mix of the serious and informative with the light-hearted probably explains the series' longevity. First aired in 2003, the show has drawn in more than 7 million viewers and has had 11 series produced. The year and episode name is usually shown on the title card following the opening title sequence. Some repeats of the show do not display the year of the episode. Each series has a similar opening title sequence but uses footage relevant to the given series. Also each series follows a different region of police forces in the UK. It is an observational documentary series which occasionally uses police footage. Between 2003 and 2015, Jamie Theakston narrated the programme. Theakston left his role in 2015 and was replaced by Steven Mackintosh. The titles and format received a minor revamp from Series 13 (2015) onwards. Repeats of the show can be seen on Dave, Really and W Channel.

A notable episode of the Motorway Cops spin-off featured footage of the 2008 double suicide attempt of Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, which occurred in front of a Motorway Cops production team as they accompanied officers to the scene.

During each episode there are frequently links between incidents, with music accompanying generic video footage. The backing tracks to these links are frequently taken from Pink Floyd albums.

Music

Here is a list of some of the tracks featured in various episodes of Traffic Cops. Although an eclectic variety of music is often used during an episode, the show largely contains excerpts from electronic dance tracks.

Artist - Song title Episode(s)
Leftfield - Song for Life (Dub for Life Mix) Series 4 - Episode 1
David Holmes - I Heard Wonders Unknown
Underworld - Pearls Girl Series 11 - Episode 6
Way Out West - Sequoia Series 4 - Episode 7
Way Out West - Blue Series 4 - 'In the Red', Series 5 - Episode 8, Series 4 - Episode 1
Way Out West - Killa Series 5 - Episode 8
Orbital - Belfast Series 9 - Episode 5
Pink Floyd - On the Run Series 10 - Episode 1
Lisa Gerrard - Paikea's Whale Series 4 - Episode 1, Series 5 - Episode 8
Amon Tobin - Easy Muffin Unknown
Altitudes - Altitude II Unknown
Daniel Lanois & Brian Eno - Sirens Series 4 - Episode 1
Pendulum - Genesis Series 9 - Episode 7
Susumu Yokota - Genshi Series 6 - Episode 9

Episodes

See also

References

    External links

    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, May 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.