A man caught clipping his nose hair behind the wheel of his car was just one of the dangerous drivers pulled over by police on the M6.
Others drivers were seen watching films whilst driving a lorry, eating their dinner and sending texts at the wheel.
Cheshire Police told the ECHO the details of some of the shocking traffic stops made by officers as part of an operation to crackdown on dangerous drivers on the UK's longest motorway.
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Police are now patrolling the M6 in an unmarked HGV as part of Operation Enforcing in a bid to spot lorry drivers and the drivers of other vehicles from an elevated position, who are driving illegally and dangerously.
This new way of patrolling the roads means police have another way to catch out rule breakers.
To find out what it's really like for officers who are tasked with catching dangerous drivers on the motorway, we headed out in a patrol car with Inspector Anton Sullivan from Cheshire Constabulary's Roads and Crime Unit.
Here's what we saw on our morning with police on the M6:
As we drive down the M6, Inspector Sullivan clocks a black BMW which is covered in dirt to the extent that the registration plate is ineligible.
We are on a section of the motorway which is known as 'all lane running' meaning there is no hard shoulder.
Inspector Sullivan changes lanes so he's in front of the driver before signalling that he needs to pull over by using a matrix device to light up a sign saying 'follow me' on the back of the patrol car.
As we turn off the motorway, a message comes through the police radio about a suspected stolen Nissan car.
The BMW driver follows behind us and we pull into the service station before he gets out of his car.
Inspector Sullivan explains that while it is common at this time of year for cars to become dirty as a result of bad weather it is a driver's responsibility to ensure their number plate is clean.
By having obscured or illegible number plates drivers can avoid both speed and automatic number plate recognition and could face a £1,000 fine.
Inspector Sullivan explains this to the BWM driver but lets him off with a warning as he agrees to go and get the number plates cleaned straight away.
Operation Enforcing aims to target drivers who are connected to criminality as well as reducing the amount of serious and fatal collisions by pursuing those committing Fatal 5 offences: careless driving, using mobile phones, failing to wear a seatbelt, speeding and drink and drug driving.
Police officers who are patrolling in unmarked HGVs as part of the operation are able to spot drivers who may be using their phone at the wheel or driving dangerously from the elevated position of the lorry cab.
They will then alert patrols who work in collaboration with them to pull the driver over.
Inspector Sullivan told the ECHO: "Over the last two years we have seen an increase unfortunately in the number of collisions that have involved serious injury and unfortunately fatalities.
"The operation is designed to do everything we can to stop these incidents from happening and to stop people getting injured."
In terms of the offences he's seen drivers committing since the operation first started, he said: "Speeding, people driving too fast in poor road conditions, people driving vehicles that are not suitable to be on the road.
"Some of light commercial vehicles that are being used, there's a lot of them that are overloaded; the danger of that is that the vehicles won't react as they're designed to if they've got too much weight in them or if the tyres aren't properly inflated.
"The use of mobile phones continues to be something that we're catching people doing all the time."
Inspector Sullivan added: "Since the 10th January we started running this operation, we've issued over 150 traffic enforcement reports; many of those for using mobile phones, many of them for speeding, many of them no insurance, no MOT.
"We've seized nearly a dozen vehicles - everything from heavy goods vehicles to private cars and bikes uninsured.
"These are all things that people who are diving vehicles whatever your role and whatever you're doing, you know what your responsibilities are and we expect people travelling into Cheshire and travelling on our roads to abide by the law - and if they don't then they can expect to be stopped by my officers."
