An American-style civilian patrol force working on the Midland motorway network could put lives in dangers, a senior police officer has claimed. Paul Tonks, chairman of the West Midlands branch of the Police Federation, said the new patrols would make little difference to road safety. He said they lacked training and expertise and voiced fears they might be used to pave the way for job cuts among specialist motorway traffic police. A team of 30 civilian officers, backed up by 24 support staff, began work last month in the M6-M5-M42 motorway box around Birmingham. The traffic officers, in orange-and-yellow uniforms, can divert traffic, inform drivers of tailbacks and take over from police after accidents to mini-mise delays but do not have the powers to pull over vehicles or make arrests. Eventually 12,000 traffic officers will be employed across the country. Mr Tonks said he thought they could eventually be used to reduce the number of regular police officers working in the Central Motorway Police Group. He said: "There is an argument that these traffic officers are not going to encroach into the area of enforcement; my belief is that in time they certainly will. "Those who patrol the motorways are working in a dangerous environment where split second operational decisions can mean the difference between life or death. "One moment officers can be dealing with routine tasks such as removing debris and in the next coping with a multiple pile-up where chaos ensues and their skills and expertise come to the fore. "It is at these times that officers earn their crust and where the Government now seems to be taking for granted." Mr Tonks, who worked as a traffic officer for four years, said he also feared the new recruits lacked sufficient training for the duties they would have to perform on the motorways. "It's a dangerous place and because of that, policing should be left to fully qualified, trained and experienced police officers, nothing more, nothing less. "For the Highways Agency to employ members of the public with only six weeks training, two of which is driver training, is not enough and totally belittles the skills of the regular officers out there. "This is about costs and cutting back. These officers will not have the powers of the police, will be less effective than the police, but could eventually be paid for by the police." He added: "What difference are they going to make to make to the safety of our motorways? "They do not have the right to exceed the speed limit or to go on the hard shoulder. If they are going to clear debris on the roadside, it could take them longer to get to an accident scene. "This could be seen as the potential death knell for traffic officers and ultimately it could lead to lives being placed in danger." The scheme is based on a US system and designed to free police officers from traffic coordinating duties to concentrate on more serious road crime. Rejecting Mr Tonks's criticisms a Highways Agency spokesman said: "The Police Federation is totally out of step with everyone else. We cannot understand these views. "All of them will have received training from police trainers in driving and everything else. We have put them to work alongside the police so they are not working totally alone at first. "They are also being requested by police to stop and direct traffic under their direction and the police are very happy at the moment with the way it is working." ........................... | 
