Traffic Cops

For the policing function see Road traffic control

Traffic Cops
The current Traffic Cops and Motorway Cops title cards.
Genre	Motoring/Police
Directed by	Bruce Lippold
Presented by	Jamie Theakston
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	11
No. of episodes	104 (to 9th October 2011) (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	United Kingdom
Running time	60 Mins
Production company(s)	BBC
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One, BBC HD
Picture format	16:9
Original run	18 March 2003 – Present
Chronology
Related shows	Road Wars (2003–2011)
External links
Website

Traffic Cops is a documentary series on BBC One which follows traffic officers from various British police forces. The current series follows Bedfordshire Police. Previous series have followed Cheshire, Hampshire, Humberside, South Wales, South Yorkshire and Sussex police forces. There is a separate spin off series billed as Traffic Cops Specials entitled Motorway Cops because the main focus on police patrolling Britain's motorways. Traffic Cops has consistently been one of the most watched factual series on UK television. Due to it's 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. The new series of Traffic Cops began broadcasting on Thursday 23 June 2011 on BBC 1.^[1]

About the series

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 the Cops visit accidents were 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. Narration is by Jamie Theakston, and repeats of the show can be seen on Blighty and on Watch.

Episodes

List of Traffic Cops episodes

See also

Car Crime UK (Folio TV) Night Cops (Folio TV) Soho Blues (Folio TV)

• Sky Cops - series broadcast on BBC One featuring the Metropolitan Police Air Support Unit
• Police Interceptors - series broadcast on Channel 5 with a similar format
• Brit Cops - police series broadcast on Sky Livingit (originally on Bravo)
• Road Wars - series with a similar format broadcast on Sky1, Sky2 and Pick TV
• Street Wars - programme broadcast on Sky which is more about Police Officers "on the beat"
• Police Camera Action! - series broadcast on ITV with a similar format
• Traffic Blues - series broadcast on RTÉ One with a similar format

References

1. ^ http://www.radiotimes.com/ListingsServlet?event=10&channelId=92&programmeId=194996150&jspLocation=/jsp/prog_details_fullpage.jsp