Seven people lost their lives in the early hours of Saturday 22 August 2026 when a Volkswagen Passat travelling the wrong way along the A66 at South Bank, near Middlesbrough, collided head-on with a marked Cleveland Police armed response vehicle.
Among those who died were Cleveland Police officers PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, along with the five occupants of the Passat.
In this episode, former detectives Tom Wood and Simon McLean examine what is currently known about the tragedy while recognising that the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collision is still at an early stage.
Tom explains how police pursuits are controlled, why a pursuit can be abandoned when the danger becomes too great, and the specialist training required to drive police vehicles at high speed.
Simon and Tom also reflect on incidents from their own police careers which brought home the risks faced by officers on the road.
Simon recalls the 1994 death of Strathclyde Police officer PC Stuart Simpson, who was killed when his police vehicle was struck head-on by a car travelling the wrong way on the M8.
Tom remembers losing two traffic officers while he was an acting divisional commander in West Lothian — and the devastating experience of personally going to the home of one of the officers to tell his wife that her husband had died.
The conversation also examines:
The circumstances leading to the A66 collision are being investigated by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Tom and Simon therefore distinguish between what is known and the questions that remain unanswered.
00:00 — Cold Open
00:50 — The A66 tragedy: seven people killed
02:43 — How police pursuits are controlled and called off
06:36 — What we know about the A66 collision
08:41 — Simon remembers PC Stuart Simpson and the 1994 M8 tragedy
10:35 — Tom recalls losing two traffic officers in West Lothian
15:41 — How road policing departments operate
17:28 — The specialist training of high-speed police drivers
20:47 — What is an Armed Response Vehicle?
25:04 — Why most British police officers remain unarmed
25:52 — The unanswered social-media question
26:37 — Closing thoughts
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