We have only just pulled out of the car park at Eccles Police station when PC Paul Ashworth begins getting information through his radio about a Ford Focus with part of its 'front end hanging off.'
Police had received reports about it being involved in a crash where it had failed to stop and got further calls regarding other 'near misses' and it being driven dangerously.
The car activated an ANPR camera near the border, heading towards Lancashire, before it was 'pinged' on a camera in Lancs heading back towards Greater Manchester.
Using that information, officers from PC Ashworth's specialist unit at GMP begin tracking it and making their way towards the area they believe it is likely to be heading.
PC Ashworth suddenly activates his lights and sirens and begins to accelerate as he is told it has been spotted on the M66 in Bury.
The police helicopter is sent up as PC Ashworth flies down the M60, heading towards Simister Island, to join with the operation to intercept it, flashing and beeping at cars in the outside lane to move out of his way.
When we arrive, the car has already come to a stop on the slip road of junction 2 where cop cars had 'boxed' and blocked the exit. A stinger had also been laid across the road in the event he got through - but it wasn't needed on this occasion.
The 38-year-old driver was detained and arrested on suspicion of driving whilst unfit through drink or drugs, and dangerous driving. "If we can predict a target coming in, our unit can get there first and it mitigates any pursuit," PC Ashworth says.
"He's now been brought to a stop, no damage, no issues to the public, and he's under arrest. That's the capability we have."
Paul is one of the officers from GMP's Roads Policing Taskforce (RPTF), set up in March last year to use data from the force's Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, as well as information from the public, provided directly to the force and through Crimestoppers, to target 'high risk' drivers.
It consists of two teams - each made up of one sergeant and five Pcs - and they use off-road bikes, as well as road bikes and liveried police cars, with the hope they may eventually have unmarked capability as well.
At least half of the roughly 90 fatal collisions in Greater Manchester last year involved drink or drugs - I'm told, and the aim is to try and arrest these people before they kill or cause serious injury.
"We are essentially an add-on to our traffic unit," PC Ashworth says. "When people ring up and say 'this person is a drug driving, this person is drink driving, this person is a disqualified driver and drives every day, it stretches the capability of a unit such as traffic, who don't have the resources to deal with it, so we were set up to look at that.
"We have been used to target high-risk drivers, drink and drug drivers, disqualified drivers. You have disqualified drivers who are deemed as high-risk and will continue to drive.
"They may have been convicted of offences such as death by dangerous driving and released from custody and they've then continued to drive."
He said the other key issue the unit was tackling is 'cloned' vehicles - whose true identity has been hidden through the stealing or duplicating of another car's registration plates. PC Ashworth says it's a 'massive issue' in Greater Manchester, where there at least 150 cloned cars which officers know about.
Information regarding these comes from a number of sources, including NPR cameras, insurance companies and the DVLA.
"We do find they go hand-in-hand. Your cloned vehicles will be used by disqualified drivers who don't want to be seen and caught. They will be used by uninsured drivers, drink and drug drivers. If they can hide the identity of that car it minimises their chances of being stopped."
Not if PC Ashworth and his team have anything to do with it. His phone displaying the ANPR system 'pings' incessantly, at least once a minute, with details of 'alarms' triggered by cars passing cameras.
"After a while, you learn which regs are which and you know which ones are genuine," he says.
I join one of PC Ashworth's patrols, which later takes us to Clifton in Salford, and see this in action when, suddenly, his eyes are drawn to a silver Vauxhall Astra van. It has previously activated an ANPR camera in the Salford area and is suspected of being a clone.
Each force has a list of 'vehicles of interest' they are constantly on the lookout for and PC Ashworth is famous for memorising them, his colleague in the front seat, Inspector Jon Middleton, who is GMP's ANPR Manager, tells me.
As the van drives towards us, PC Ashworth reads the reg aloud to himself and says 'is that that clone?' before radioing to double-check it is one they have been tracking.
After getting confirmation he catches up with it and begins following for a short time before it pulls over and comes to what cops call a 'natural stop'.
The 41-year-old driver is handcuffed and put into the back of the police car whilst Insp Middleton questions his passenger. PC Ashworth carries out a 'drugs wipe' which tests someone's saliva for traces of cocaine and cannabis, and it comes back positive for cocaine.
Back at the station, a blood sample will be taken and sent for analysis to determine the precise level he had in his system. According to PC Ashworth, he also only held a provisional licence, meaning he wasn't insured.
"We've been after this one for ages," an officer from a car which arrives to assist says.
The van is searched and checked over by officers and the registration doesn't match the chassis number, meaning it is indeed a clone. The vehicle the registration actually relates to is another Astra - in Bolton.
"The van that it should be, the registration it was displaying, was insured, it was registered, it did have an MOT," PC Ashworth said. "So there would be no reason why a police officer would look to stop that vehicle. The true registration had no insurance, no MOT, it had no keeper. If he drove that on its normal plates it would get stopped by us."
Due to it having no insurance a sticker is slapped on the window saying 'seized by police' as locals watch on. A recovery truck then almost immediately arrives to collect it. "That is a cloned vehicle, a drug driver and an uninsured driver off the road in one go," PC Ashworth says.
The stop was the perfect example of ANPR and old-fashioned policing working hand-in-hand, Insp Middleton says.
Another arrest made by PC Ashworth which is instead a classic case of 'copper's nose.' We are driving near Heaton Park in Prestwich when his attention is drawn to a VW Passat which he begins following.
It comes to a stop on Meade Hill Road. The driver gets out of the car, which PC Ashworth says 'stinks of cannabis.' A drugs wipe on the driver is negative and no drugs are found on the 29-year-old or his 17-year-old brother sat in the passenger seat.
However, inside the car is lighting which both officers believe it has been or is intended to be used in the cultivation of cannabis. Although there's insufficient grounds to arrest either of them in relation to this, PC Ashworth issues a warning to the driver that if they do get involved in the production of drugs, officers would soon be 'coming through your door.'
He also tells us that information regarding the stop could later prove to be 'vital intelligence.'
"Should something else come to light, should a neighbour report they can smell cannabis in the early hours of the morning or our helicopter flies over and there's a heat source on the house, there will be an intelligence report to say these two were stopped with equipment that could be used in the cultivation of cannabis and off the back of that, you would get a warrant," he says.
Officers on off-road bikes who are also part of the unit come to assist. The 29 year-old man is an Albanian national who holds a Greek driving licence and, in order to 'tick all the boxes' PC Ashworth carries out checks on his immigration status.
The man admits to him that his visa expired nine years ago and he is arrested on the request of the UK Border Agency and taken into custody to be questioned by them. The officers also carry out safeguarding checks at the address in Harpurhey where his younger brother is living, before handing over the incident.
"ANPR isn't the be-all and end-all," Insp Middleton says. "It's just another tool in the arsenal. But we have seen today examples where ANPR has led to a vehicle being contained and stopped. It was a safe stop because ANPR allowed officers to get ahead of it.
"But we've also seen an arrest from just instinct really, nothing to do with ANPR. So we can't rely on it solely, but it's definitely, a massive, massive tool for our use."
Insp Middleton has called for the 400-plus ANPR cameras erected for enforcement of the Clean Air Zone (CAZ) to eventually be added to the force's network. Data from them can currently be obtained on request, but Insp Middleton says it would be of huge benefit to his team and other officers for it to be fed directly into the police's systems.
A public consultation would be required for such a move. However, Insp Middleton says: "The more cameras we have, the more information, the more intelligence we get and the greater chance they can do their job and stop those vehicles, seize them and arrest the bad guys."
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