The Motorway

The return of the documentary following emergency patrol teams on the M1, beginning as the North East Control Team deal with a serious accident on the M18 near Doncaster during the Friday rush hour. Elsehwere, a driver is found dazed and confused on a motorway near Manchester, and dispatchers Liam and Chris in the North West control room must try to find his missing car, which has mysteriously vanished from the carriageway.

High in the Pennines on the M62, a driver gets trapped in the snow in an extremely dangerous location, with high-speed traffic in danger of smashing into the stranded car. Just north of Manchester, heavy rain, sleet and snow on the M60 create treacherous conditions and a driver spins his supercar off the carriageway, taking out a 20ft section of the crash barrier in the process.

In the north-west, Gavin and Martin are searching for a pedestrian on the M6 in poor visibility due to heavy rain, when they are re-assigned to a six-car pile-up. Maintenance men Mick, Steve and Neil are on the A1M, cleaning a notorious litter hotspot just outside a busy motorway service station.

Just outside Manchester, patrollers Victoria and Darren fight their way through heavy traffic to reach a high-speed crash on the M62. It's a pile-up with 15 people involved, nine wrecked cars — and one of them spilling fuel onto the motorway. The M62 is blocked, they have more than a thousand cars trapped behind the crash site, and the jam is growing by the minute. In a major incident like this, the M62 won't be back up to full speed until the early hours of the morning. Patrollers Adam and David are looking for anything that could be a hazard to high-speed traffic. Debris on the roads causes thousands of accidents a year, and today they find a garden fork, then a spade, followed by an entire garden shed in the middle of the M62! A simple breakdown on the hard shoulder becomes a tiring afternoon for one lone motorbiker, who is determined to push his machine all the way home. But it's four miles to the nearest exit, so with the added danger of being hit by a passing lorry, the traffic officers decide to escort him until he gets off the motorway. And a diesel spillage on a major interchange of the M62 near Bradford causes chaos. With one car already skidded off the roundabout, Adam and David must close the junction. But with 5,000 vehicles an hour diverted, not everyone is happy and one lorry driver attempts to drive through the road block.

During rush hour on the M6 in the northwest of England, patrollers Steven and Sue hit traffic jams near Warrington and discover a three-car RTC with one driver injured and trapped in her car. It should be a straightforward incident to deal with, but the patroller's lives are in danger when a van driver ignores emergency signals and attempts to drive past the crash site on the hard shoulder. Outside Manchester, patrollers Iain and Carl are back working together for the first time since the pandemic. Reunited after a year working solo, they're on form and ready for anything. But they weren't expecting to deal with a broken-down lorry load of horses in the middle of the M60. A ton of horse bolting across lanes of high-speed traffic is a nightmare they must avoid at all costs — so they're forced to shut down both sides of the M60 and two slip roads from the M61 to get the horses safely off the motorway. Potholes are a dangerous hazard for motorway traffic and fixing them without major roadworks is a skilled operation requiring military precision. While Steven and Sue bring the motorway to a stop, the plan is for maintenance teams to swoop in and fill the hole in record time so the motorway can get back to full speed. But can it be done without a hitch? On the M62, patrollers Sharon and Phil deal with a 4x4 that's been smashed into and rolled over by an HGV. And Iain goes above and beyond the call of duty when he attempts to retrieve a mobile phone from a storm drain on the hard shoulder.

Patrollers Chris and Woody work 12 of the busiest motorways in Britain, including the M6. They race to the rescue of a young woman who swerved to avoid a tyre in the middle of the road, but crashed into a concrete barrier. She's now trapped in the middle of six lanes of high-speed traffic. All goes to plan until drivers start to ignore the emergency closed lane signs, putting the patrollers' lives in danger. In Lancashire, Dave and Chris come to the rescue of a school-run mum and her three young children when their car is hit and shoved sideways down the motorway by a 40-tonne truck. Patrollers Lewis and Nick deal with a series of breakdowns causing chaos on the M1. There's never a good excuse for running out of fuel on the motorway, but it's a dangerous and all too common problem for the patrollers. Unfortunately, there's worse to come, as Nick and Lewis find an abandoned lorry on the side of the M1. Chris and Woody must fight their way through traffic to reach a serious crash on the M6. And a £17 million roadworks project near Sheffield hits a bump in the road.

Patrollers Helen and David race to a car that has broken down in the middle of an unlit section of the M1 near Leeds. but it is smashed into at high speed by another vehicle, sending wreckage hundreds of yards down the carriageway. Meanwhile outside Manchester, an elderly couple are stranded in the dark when their car suddenly stops in a live lane.

On the night shift in the control room near Leeds, motorway dispatcher Stuart spots a car crash on the busy M62 on CCTV. A pick-up truck towing a trailer spins out of control, flips over sideways and hits the crash barrier, narrowly missing other vehicles. The truck and trailer are left pointing the wrong way, facing oncoming traffic in a live lane.