As said by some of my colleagues,we are trained to fend off.I personally park straight,in line with the rumble strip,as far left as possible.This way,i am as far from the running lane as possible,unless the situation (a car o/s wheel change) dictates otherwise.If a driver cannot see all our lights,then seeing our battenburg isn’t going to matter!!
Maybe when vehicles park at an angle, to create the battenburg effect, it would be a little safer not to put the corner of their vehicle which sits closest to the rumble strip, so near to the rumble strip. I have witness many many times vehicles (mainly VOSA and tyre fitters) that are parked in such a way that the outer most corner of their vehicles site over the rumble strip and almost into lane one. In circumstances where I find it diificult, to impossible, to move over to lane two I am aware that I am passing said vehicles extremely close. Within inches. It creates one of those adrenalin moments which is unnecessary.
Is anybody else in agreeance with me? Or is there something I am missing?
The Highway Man:
ezydriver:
And we would really appreciate the people (copious vosa individuals, RAC men, Tyre fitters etc) not parking in such a way to endanger themselves on the hard shoulder.The number of times I have been unable to get into lane two due to a heavy volume of traffic, or being overtaken, and somebody ‘official’ has parked on the line, or at a weird angle, which, in my opinion, is seriously dangerous and alarming.
Why do you do this? Is it to encourage traffic to move over? Are you aware that some vehicles cannot?
Is the reason due to some other safety reason? If so, it seems a little illogical to me and I would find the reason interesting.
.Our vehicles are parked in such a way known as “Fending” we either fend in or out depending on the road layout. The reason we do this so you can see more of our battenburg on the side. The battenburg is designed to act like chevrons pushing the traffic out away from our scene. I was once informed by a motorway police officer at the scene of a 2 LGV RTC that it was better to park at a sharper degree so that approaching traffic sees the battenburg first and moves over to the open lanes.
Highway man…the “Fend Off” position is used as a safety margin, it creates a hard, physical barrier with the intention of creating a reasonable and relatively safe distance between the hazard and the Fend Off vehicle.
Its nothing to do with trying to get the battenberg patterns creating an illusion or effect so as to make a driver filter to one side!!
If a traffic copper suggested you park across the hard shoulder at more of an angle then I would imagine he thought that you havent created enough of a physical barrier with your vehicle when you originally fended off!!
Sure, if your 4WD gets hit straight on by 44 tonnes of truck then it wont really make that much difference how far away you have parked but if you have fended off correctly then your vehicle will take the impact but it should stop a car, van etc piling straight on into yourselves and the hazard vehicle, RTC etc.
One other question that gets asked alot is…“why fend off with the nose of the vehicle facing TOWARDS the live lanes??”
If you were to get shunted from behind the vehicle take the impact as stated above but would go across the live lanes, where as, if the vehicle was placed with the nose facing the hard shoulder it would reduce that possibility of further accidents!!
Havent heard a single “DEFINITIVE” answer for that one yet!! 
OH…one last thing, how come you chaps dont seem to “cone off” very often? I know you have your SOP`s but surely when you have fended off and established that you may be there a while then one of you should get the cones out!!! It all helps to create scene safety!!
By the way, please dont think im knocking you chaps, im not…just making a few observations thats all. 
bullitt:
one last thing, how come you chaps dont seem to “cone off” very often? I know you have your SOP`s but surely when you have fended off and established that you may be there a while then one of you should get the cones out!!! It all helps to create scene safety!!
It all depends how long you are staying on scene. On my part of the network, the passenger goes forward to assess the situation whilst the driver places a “keep right” arrow behind our vehicle. If we decide to leave the scene the sign is put back in the vehicle, safety advice is given and we leave them to it. If we decide to stay, the driver then deploys a 50m coned out area behind our vehicle commonly known as a “hard shoulder box” In times of failing light, we also place out flashing amber beacons interspersed with the cones. As for fending off, I tend to park in line but we are trained to fend in, out and park in line, it all depends on the situation and surrounding area. I agree about the problems that could be caused if the traffic officer vehicle is struck by a 44 ton LGV doing 60 MPH, lets face it, it doesn’t matter what way the wheels are facing, our car is going to carry on in the direction it was hit!! I think my comments on parking at a sharper angle were misunderstood, My vehicle was parked across lanes 1 + 2 following a nasty RTC between 2 LGV’s. The lanes were coned off and police were also on scene parked the same way. We were on the brow of a hill and traffic had little time to react before reaching the closure.
another thing I was always told to take into consideration with fending off is that if you are in a live lane it is more immediately clear that you are stationary. If you are in a straight line with all your lights on it can take a moment or two to register if you are moving at speed, slowly or completely stationary.
i always anticipate that someone is going to walk out from the front of anything that’s parked on the hard shoulder and where appropriate, at least try and hog the white line between lane 1 and 2. I ran out front the front of a parked car when i was 9 and got skittled, learned from it from the bollocking i got from my old fella when the driver of the car that hit me came knocking at the door.