IT was very fitting that Herts police should have hosted the 1999 motorway birthday bash.
For in 1959 the county’s force quickly became the acknowledged experts on motorway policing.
When the M1 first opened Hemel Hempstead police station became the centreof excellence for motorway matters.
Well before the opening a series of training sessions for police officers from all the forces along the new road’s route were held at Hemel Hempstead under Superintendent F. W. Pritchard and police and civilians came to the town to see how it was done.
Getting ready for an M1 patrol in the yard at Hemel Police Station- the old station. |
Until the coming of the motorway, police cars had been black - but it was soon realised that higher visibility would be needed on the motorway so each force was equipped with two white Ford Zephyr estates with flashing blue lights on the roof.
But even white cars weren’t always safe as the picture, top, taken from the book 150 Years Policing in Watford District and Hertfordshire County shows. In 1976 three police vehicles were damaged while stationary on the hard shoulder.
The motorway police remained based at Hemel Hempstead until, in the 1960s, a new purpose-built HQ was constructed at North Watford police station.
Motorway driving was a whole new experience for the drivers of 1959 and the early 1960s. As retired Herts motorway police officer Roy Ward remembers, drivers stopping for a picnic on the hard shoulder were not unusual.
Drivers weren’t used to long distances at high speeds, and neither were the cars. Breakdowns were frequent and with no MoTs for cars in those days police issued appeals for drivers with old or unreliable cars to stay off the M1.
Sadly, accidents were soon to become a feature of the M1 and hundreds of people have lost their lives on it over the years.
The first fatality on the Herts section came two months before the road openedwhen a plane carrying officials from the Tarmac company crashed while landing on the carriageway near Leverstock Green.
The first ever 100 vehicle pile-up happened on the M1 in Herts in 1969 and multiple pile-ups, particularly on the two-lane stretch between Hemel Hempstead and Watford, became a feature of Sunday nights and foggy mornings in the late 1960s and early 1970s Eventually sustained pressure led to the introduction of crash barriers.
But the idea that the motorways are accident black spots is something of a myth. In 1960 the M1 and A1 - then not a motorway at all - both totalled 17 miles in Herts. A comparison showed that six people were killed and 92 injured on the M1, but 13 were killed and 261 injured on the A1.
