Road Wars is a British reality television programme produced for Sky One, and now repeated ad nauseam on Pick, that follows a proactive unit of the British Thames Valley Police service as they go about their duties, interspersed with archive footage of car chases from other areas including the United States. As the name implies, most of the officers' duties involve some form of them nicking people on the road, often with a simple stop for a lack of insurance turning into a far worse affair (e.g. possession of drugs or weapons, or in one notable case the driver having overstayed on his visa and subsequently prosecuted for such).
Narrated mostly by Mancunian actor Lee Boardman with the exception of the very last series, Road Wars is notable for its light-hearted and Incredibly Lame Pun filled tone compared to other similar series, which are often presented in a far more dry and serious way. A Spin-Off called Street Wars was also produced, also narrated by Boardman, although far darker and more serious in tone and with more emphasis on more violent crime compared to car chases and the like.
You do not have to look at any tropes but it may harm your understanding of Road Wars if you fail to do so:
- Bad Liar: Most of the suspects never lie convincingly to the police, goes hand in hand with Never My Fault diatribes for good measure.
- Black Comedy: In many respects.
- Blatant Lies: The officers habitually ask anyone subject to a drug search if they have anything on them they shouldn't have. Almost invariably, they answer "no". Just as invariably, they have drugs or weapons on them.
- Also, the almost universal truth that someone pulled over for having no car insurance will falsely claim to have car insurance, a gambit which absolutely never works.note
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The officers tend to talk directly to camera to explain what is happening in a given situation in their own words, or to discuss their feelings on the outcome of a situation (positive or negative).
- Drunk Driver: Constantly, and often extremely poor at lying about it.
- Eat the Evidence: Attempted by more than one person. It usually doesn't work.
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Lee Boardman's stock in trade.
- Interface Spoiler: Because of the various edits the programme has to make to disguise peoples' identities years after the fact (see "Pixellation") you can quite easily tell when someone's given a false name to the police before the truth comes out; the programme doesn't bleep it out.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: The final series is quite different. It moves away from Thames Valley and instead focuses on Devon and Cornwall, the theme tune was replaced and the last few episodes are not narrated by Lee Boardman.
- Lower-Class Lout: A frequent appearance.
- Once an Episode/Opening Narration: "Road Wars follows an elite unit of the Thames Valley Police... in Road Wars, the unexpected is always just around the corner."
- Pixellation: Generally used on people who are innocent or only accused of minor offences. They don't tend to bother where someone has done something particularly awful.
- Also used on repeats to disguise the identities of those offenders whose convictions are spent
or otherwise just a long time ago (along with names being bleeped), which given the age of the show now will be most of them.
- Also used on repeats to disguise the identities of those offenders whose convictions are spent
- Scare 'Em Straight: On the few occasions some younger minors are seen doing something which would otherwise be an arrestable offence, the officers tend to attempt this rather than needlessly upsetting a child and their parents by arresting them.
- World of Snark: British police are renowned for being deeply cutting when they feel that someone's behaving like an idiot or feeding them bullshit, and this trait is fully on display throughout the series.
