Road Wars

2003 Ended Sky Showcase

Crime

This series follows the fourteen members of the Thames Valley Police's roads policing proactive unit (road crime unit - known within the force as "Tango Vulture" - taken from their TV call-sign prefix and the joke that they swoop to steal arrests from other officers) while they carried out their duties. Road Wars is unlike other previous police program on Sky in that it followed the work of officers rather than simply playing police video clips. The Thames Valley Police unit operates high-specification, unmarked 3.0L V6 Vauxhall Omegas (now being replaced by unmarked 2.8L Turbo V6 Police Special Vauxhall Vectras) and is tasked with taking a proactive role in fighting crime especially targeted towards street robbers and burglars, but also undertaking general traffic policing (the officers are drawn from standard Roads Policing teams). Claire is an ideal narrator, in stark contrast to Lee Boardman, who may be a good actor, but he is definitely not a good narrator. Over exaggeration and misuse of the English language are his failings. With the programme see-able here in Sweden, I get complaints from my pupils regarding the way he speaks, so often omitting the letter T in words like mo(t)or and be(tt)er. Pathetic in fact.