''Road Wars'' is a British police

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programme created by Raw Cut TV for

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and broadcast on

Sky1 Sky One was a British pay television channel operated and owned by Sky Group (a division of Comcast). Originally launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, it was Europe's first satellite and non- terrestrial channel. From 31 July 1989 ...

from 26 July 2003 to 24 January 2010. From Series 1 the show was narrated by actor

Lee Boardman Lee Boardman (born 2 July 1972) is an English actor and narrator. He has appeared in the films ''Jack the Giant Slayer'' and '' Love's Kitchen'', and the television series ''Rome''. Career Boardman played Murray Priestman in '' Drop Dead Gorg ...

. The 2nd half of series 7 was narrated by actress

Claire Goose Claire Goose is a Scottish actress who first gained attention playing Tina Seabrook on the long-running BBC One medical drama '' Casualty'' (1997–2000). Her other roles include DS "Mel" Silver in '' Waking the Dead'' (2000–2007), Insp. ...

. As of 2023, the show has repeats on

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and Sky Crime.

Format

Road Wars followed the work of police officers, documenting the changing tactics of criminals and the response of the UK police forces. For six seasons the show followed officers in the

Thames Valley The Thames Valley is an area in South East England that extends along the River Thames west of London towards Oxford. The area is a major tourist destination and economic hub on the M4 corridor, with a high concentration of technology companies ...

, but moved to

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

and

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

for the last series in 2009. The programme also features some police videos both in the UK and US.

narrated the show until the second half of series 7, employing a light-hearted and pun-intended approach. At the

opening narration The three-act structure is a model used in narrative fiction that divides a story into three parts ( acts), often called the Setup, the Confrontation, and the Resolution. Syd Field described it in his 1979 book ''Screenplay: The Foundations of ...

Boardman says "In Road Wars, the unexpected is always just around the corner". The title music was composed by Nainita Desai and Malcolm Laws. Other music was made by the series' co-creator Bill Rudgard. In series 1 the title card consisted of 'ROAD WARS' in red

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form. A new title card was made for series 3, which was slightly edited with yellow accents for series 6. The first two series had six episodes, series 3 and 4 had eight episodes each, and series 5 and 6 had 20 episodes each. For series 7 as the show moved to another police force, a new title card and new music was composed. Boardman left his position as narrator and the last 8 episodes were narrated by

Thames Valley Police

For series 1–6, the programme followed the fourteen members of the

Thames Valley Police Thames Valley Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the Thames Valley region, covering the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire in South East England. It is the largest non-metropolitan police force ...

's roads policing proactive unit (Road Crime Unit) – known as "Tango Victor". They are also said to be known to fellow officers as "Tango Vulture", taken from their callsign prefix TV (Tango Victor) and the joke that they swoop to steal arrests from other officers while they carried out their duties. The footage from this team is combined with video footage from police forces around the world (though largely UK and US forces).

Officers

Officers involved in Road Wars are listed below. As a specialist unit, officers tended to appear in a couple of series, or just for one series.

Regular teams

Vehicles

The

unit operates high-specification, unmarked 3.2L V6 Vauxhall Omegas (B2 model), replaced in later series by unmarked 2.8L Turbo V6 Police Special Vauxhall Vectras. The unit 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 normal Roads Policing teams).

Devon & Cornwall Police

In October 2008 Thames Valley Police pulled out from the show after concerns on how its officers are depicted. From Series 7, the show moved on to follow the Road Crime Unit and the front line Dog Squad of

Devon and Cornwall Police Devon and Cornwall Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial counties of Devon and Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly) in South West England. The force serves approximately 1.8 million people over an ...

. The Road Crime Unit operates marked

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

3 Series The BMW 3 series is a line of compact executive cars manufactured by the German automaker BMW since May 1975. It is the successor to the BMW 02 Series, 02 series and has been produced in seven generations. The first generation of the 3 Series ...

along with unmarked 2.5L

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STs.

Transmissions

There have been eight series of Road Wars. Four special episodes have been shown including two American episodes (known as ''Road Wars USA''), which aired in 2005, where British police from the series travel to the U.S. to see the difference in police and

criminal In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

behaviour and two

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specials shown in 2003 and 2004. Three compilation editions entitled "Ultimate Road Wars", featuring action from the first six series, first aired on

on 11 November, 13 November and 1 December 2008.

Special

In a special two part series called ''Road Wars USA'', Andy Samuels and Chris Piggott spent a couple of months attached to a Gang Unit in

Cicero, Illinois Cicero is a town in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and a suburb of Chicago. As of the 2020 census, the population was 85,268, making it the 11th-most populous municipality in Illinois. The town is named after Marcus Tullius Cicero, a R ...

, near Chicago, to note how law enforcement is practised in the United States.

Notable death

On 5 December 2017, an on-duty policeman PC James Dixon, who appeared in the show was killed in a motorcycle collision along with a 91-year old woman on the A4 road in

Wargrave Wargrave () is a historic village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. The village is primarily on the River Thames but also along the confluence of the River Loddon and lies on the border with southern Oxfordshire. The village has many ol ...

, Berkshire. He was 39 years old.

International broadcasts

The Road Wars series has also been sold to these

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and

stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle stat ...

: Notes: # Broadcast under the name 'De Politie Op Je Hielen

References

External links

Official site on Sky (Archived 14 May 2007)
* {{Sky1 2000s British reality television series 2003 British television series debuts 2010 British television series endings 2010s British reality television series 2000s British crime television series 2010s British crime television series Documentary television series about policing Sky UK reality television shows British English-language television shows