In this issue I continue my jihad against

[Chuck Haggard]

cops driving like retards.

For peeps with FB;
https://www.facebook.com/agiletactical/posts/747897652011248

"Even non cops can learn something from the LEOKA summaries. Claude Werner often highlights some of these lessons learned when he does an after-action analysis of specific incidents.
Once again this year we see that traffic fatalities are the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths. In the non LE world you are far more likely to get whacked in a wreck than in a gunfight, but I know very few shooters who take the time to go to a driving school of any kind.
For many years the leading cause of LE deaths has been single car wrecks. Simply put, cops get in a hurry and over drive the car, and drive too damn fast.
You do no one any good if you never get there because you are wrapped around a tree along the way.
Slow down....
Wear your seat belt....
The siren is not a magic force field..........
Wear your vest, it helps protect from both gunfire and the steering wheel going through your chest.
Also, a significant portion of the on-duty deaths happened due to the officer just plain dropping over dead from things like a heart attack during/after a fight or foot chase.
Eat less, get in shape, lift, do some cardio..............
From the article;
"The 124 officer fatalities recorded in 2015 represent a four percent increase from the 119 officers who died in the line of duty in 2014. Of the officers who died, 52 were killed in traffic-related incidents, 42 were killed by gunfire and 30 died as a result of other causes."

http://www.officer.com/news/12153470/law-enforcement-lodds-rose-slightly-in-2015?utm_source=Officer.com+Newsday+E-Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CPS151224004

[41magfan]

That's good advice for anyone. Driving a car is the most dangerous activity most of us (especially COPS) engage in and it's one of the few risks that we have the ability to manage.

[Peally]

Micro aggressions! Micro aggressions!

[LittleLebowski]

Does this cover cops doing 70 in a 55 and not responding to a call? :D

[Chuck Haggard]

I may have been prompted to get on this again by the coincidence that the report just came out, and I was on a ride-along recently where the officer driving thought it a good idea to get his Charger up to 131mph, in the dark, on a road with intermittent wet patches, to a simple alarm call........

[Chuck Haggard]

Does this cover cops doing 70 in a 55 and not responding to a call? :D

Yes

[SLG]

For anyone on the fence...if you enjoy firearms training schools, you will LOVE driver training. I've been to BSR too many times to count and am instructor rated there, as well as having been to most of the other tactical driving schools in the country. Saved my life a few times as a young cop, when my decision making wasn't as "refined" as it is now. Since then it has continued to pay dividends, even when I've made better choices.

[PD Sgt.]

I used to remind my guys they were basically driving fleet vehicles maintained by the same guys who wrench on garbage trucks using low bid parts. Finely tuned performance machines they are not. We even found one where the mechanics had somehow managed to fit a Chevy wheel/tire onto a Crown Vic. Not what I want to bank my life on going 20 MPH too fast into a corner for the sake of getting somewhere a few seconds quicker.

[Dagga Boy]

For anyone on the fence...if you enjoy firearms training schools, you will LOVE driver training. I've been to BSR too many times to count and am instructor rated there, as well as having been to most of the other tactical driving schools in the country. Saved my life a few times as a young cop, when my decision making wasn't as "refined" as it is now. Since then it has continued to pay dividends, even when I've made better choices.

Driver training is worse than firearms when it comes to good, on going, recent, and relevant training in law enforcement. Most places get whatever was done in the academy....and that is it. I was lucky in that I was driving a race car as a teen. I was way more into cars than guns. I was also driving big, straight axel hard to drive high horsepower vehicles....a lot like police cars. Then got into off road vehicles I actually drove off road a lot. During my cop career I went to exactly one driving class...back at the academy that was "good", but typically average instructors at a great facility. Like many of the mandated firearms courses, I could out drive the instructors. I would have loved some serious advanced driving stuff.

Today's cops....terrible. Driving cars not like the kind of vehicles that they are used to. We don't hire kids like I was as far as interests. I am sure there are not many police rookies who had two vehicles when they were in college...a barely street legal drag car later converted to a Bonzai runner and a mountain bike. Most of the trainees I got had "using my mom's mini van on weekends" as a driving background. Rookies wrecking cars was normal when I left. When I started, you could literally do anything you wanted.....except wreck a car. They were very hard on wrecking cars, unless you were in some horrendous incident. This is what kept dumb kids from driving over a hundred to alarm calls. My racing background also had me ALWAYS wearing a seat belt. Most guys I worked with did not....for "officer safety". Drove me nuts at the stupidity of that.
As Chuck pointed out, this is a major issue that needs attention. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with racist cops needing cultural sensitivity as a guardian, so it will not get addressed.

[Wayne Dobbs]

If we start telling stupid cop driving stories, guns will all of a sudden become very safe items. Suffice it to say, we do a very poor job in this nation of teaching driving to anybody, let alone the police, and those of us who've done the job know how sad the firearms training usually is.

[deputyG23]

For anyone on the fence...if you enjoy firearms training schools, you will LOVE driver training. I've been to BSR too many times to count and am instructor rated there, as well as having been to most of the other tactical driving schools in the country. Saved my life a few times as a young cop, when my decision making wasn't as "refined" as it is now. Since then it has continued to pay dividends, even when I've made better choices.
I sent my college age son to BSR. Worth every penny. He has had a couple of close calls in which the training he got saved him.

[pablo]

Does this cover cops doing 70 in a 55 and not responding to a call? :D

That would also depend on what traffic would normally be doing if a police car wasn't there. Regardless of what traffic normally does or the speed limit, that 25% increase in speed adds about a 40% to the stopping distance. In this day and age of in car cameras and AVLs, if the officer is at fault in a crash, he has only himself to blame when he gets jammed up by the big brother devices.

Seat belt are a major pet peeve of mine, not wearing seat belts is IME the number one area of avoidable workplace injuries and deaths.

I'm not saying the "old days" were all that great, but are rather sterile approach to police work leaves a lot of officers totally unprepared when SHTF. We have severely curtailed Code-3, that's lights and sirens, driving and now we have problems with officers that can't clear intersections or even see red lights. They get overwhelmed because they don't have practice. Our current chases, while once in a blue moon, or truly scary. We have ten year officers that have never been in chase, when they finally get in one, they lose their minds. They don't have any little chases under their belts.

[Dagga Boy]

Does this cover cops doing 70 in a 55 and not responding to a call? :D

Would you rather officers do exactly the speed limit on the highway? I always thought I was being nice by not doing the CHP special of sitting at 55 mph in the number one lane just daring someone to pass me. Best way I know to create a nice big traffic jam.

[pablo]

Would you rather officers do exactly the speed limit on the highway? I always thought I was being nice by not doing the CHP special of sitting at 55 mph in the number one lane just daring someone to pass me. Best way I know to create a nice big traffic jam.

Which quickly turns into 45 when that officer gets behind someone that gets a little nervous about whatever misdeed they may have committed and thinks that going under the limit will draw less attention to themselves. Either way the cops are asses for speeding or asses for slowing up traffic, the complainers still get to complain and we wouldn't want to leave them unsatisfied.

[pablo]

I have found a very passive approach to getting officer to slow down.

The only group that consistently benefits from an officer speeding, is the command staff. Those are the same people that have totally screwed up the driving policy. When it comes to response time statistics, seconds really do matter. If you don't like the command staff, slow down and let the command staff hang themselves with their own driving policy.

[LittleLebowski]

Would you rather officers do exactly the speed limit on the highway? I always thought I was being nice by not doing the CHP special of sitting at 55 mph in the number one lane just daring someone to pass me. Best way I know to create a nice big traffic jam.

I'm completely out of my lane here and happily admit that but a two lane road in VA is a bit different than say the 405 or the 5 :D I also note that Chuck agreed with me.

[Ptrlcop]

I rolled a squad on the track in the academy so I don't have much to add.

I will say that our driving training is so sanitized now you barely squeak a tire. This does not prepare people that never drove like a derp in high school.

[LittleLebowski]

Which quickly turns into 45 when that officer gets behind someone that gets a little nervous about whatever misdeed they may have committed and thinks that going under the limit will draw less attention to themselves. Either way the cops are asses for speeding or asses for slowing up traffic, the complainers still get to complain and we wouldn't want to leave them unsatisfied.

I support cops. I just note them drastically exceeding the normal speed on the highway where I live and doing so regularly.

[Dagga Boy]

I have found a very passive approach to getting officer to slow down.

The only group that consistently benefits from an officer speeding, is the command staff. Those are the same people that have totally screwed up the driving policy. When it comes to response time statistics, seconds really do matter. If you don't like the command staff, slow down and let the command staff hang themselves with their own driving policy.

Yep. Biggest thing you can do for DePolicing and when the pendulum has swung against LE is to drive the speed limit or below to everything except assisting a fellow officer. Sometimes it is not worth risking anything for folks who do not appreciate it.

Many of those officers you see speeding are going to calls that policy doesn't cover a code run to. Many officers in understaffed agencies do not have a ton of free time to randomly speed around just for the hell of it. They are likely going to somebody's 911 call. Folks want them to slow down.......until it is your house they are going to and then its "they took forever". When I cared, I had the fastest response times to in progress priority 1 calls in my beat. Sub 2 minutes. I took my time to b.s and stuff where it was not critical, and drove the car like it wasn't mine to in progress felonies in my area. May have been "wrong" by the thinking of many here who know about LE from watching COPS, but if you got a sub 2 minute response from your local LE to real emergencies, I think it would be a win.

I always maintained to anyone who would listen (which was few) that to treat LE like a business, you need a "commodity" to base success on as money will not work. The commodity I came up with that most taxpayers (key word "payer") give a real crap about is response times. They don't care about the truck full of dope on the Interstate's street value, they don't care about red ribbon week, or how much ticket revenue has been generated, they care about calling 911 and having someone come in a timely manner. If I was King, we would assess P.D.'s by response times as a real metric to how they are doing. You also arrest a lot of real criminals by getting to calls when the crime is still happening. I always had good in progress felony arrest numbers from catching crooks in the act, or leaving the scene.

[MichaelD]

I support cops. I just note them drastically exceeding the normal speed on the highway where I live and doing so regularly.

Which given the penalties for the great unwashed speeders in Virginia, just adds to it being completely and totally unacceptable.

[VegasHK]

Yep. Biggest thing you can do for DePolicing and when the pendulum has swung against LE is to drive the speed limit or below to everything except assisting a fellow officer. Sometimes it is not worth risking anything for folks who do not appreciate it.

Many of those officers you see speeding are going to calls that policy doesn't cover a code run to. Many officers in understaffed agencies do not have a ton of free time to randomly speed around just for the hell of it. They are likely going to somebody's 911 call. Folks want them to slow down.......until it is your house they are going to and then its "they took forever". When I cared, I had the fastest response times to in progress priority 1 calls in my beat. Sub 2 minutes. I took my time to b.s and stuff where it was not critical, and drove the car like it wasn't mine to in progress felonies in my area. May have been "wrong" by the thinking of many here who know about LE from watching COPS, but if you got a sub 2 minute response from your local LE to real emergencies, I think it would be a win.

I always maintained to anyone who would listen (which was few) that to treat LE like a business, you need a "commodity" to base success on as money will not work. The commodity I came up with that most taxpayers (key word "payer") give a real crap about is response times. They don't care about the truck full of dope on the Interstate's street value, they don't care about red ribbon week, or how much ticket revenue has been generated, they care about calling 911 and having someone come in a timely manner. If I was King, we would assess P.D.'s by response times as a real metric to how they are doing. You also arrest a lot of real criminals by getting to calls when the crime is still happening. I always had good in progress felony arrest numbers from catching crooks in the act, or leaving the scene.


Yes, yes and yes. There is a great deal of truth in that post.

[Trooper224]

Over the last decade we've been seeing an ever increasing lack of driving ability in our recruits. By the very nature of our job this is worse for us than many agencies, since we spend the majority of our time behind the wheel of a car. Recruits simply don't have the depth of driving experience we did when we showed up. Once upon a time, getting your license was a big deal. Being able to drive on your own was your first step to independence and we all couldn't wait to do it. Once you had that DL and a car you were driving with your bros every chance you got. Now, as teenagers they're mostly satisfied with having mommy and daddy shepherd them around, or maybe one of the guys has a car so everyone just piles in with him. These days we're spending an unusual amount of time just teaching basic driving skills before we can even start on dynamic stuff. When I was a teenager I had a veritable mountain of speeding tickets. Ironically, all but one were from the Highway Patrol. At least once a month it was, "Do you know how fast you were going?" "Yes sir, 137." "Yeah, how'd you know that?" "Well, I had it to the firewall and that's as fast as this baby will go." By the time I showed up at the academy I was 28 years old and had that all out of my system, but two things I'd didn't have to be taught were how to shoot and how to drive the shit out of a motor vehicle. As with many things in our profession these days, difficulties stem from an overall lack of life experience on the part of the recruit.

[Hambo]

Here's another problem: MDT use while driving.

[Dagga Boy]

Over the last decade we've been seeing an ever increasing lack of driving ability in our recruits. By the very nature of our job this is worse for us than many agencies, since we spend the majority of our time behind the wheel of a car. Recruits simply don't have the depth of driving experience we did when we showed up. Once upon a time, getting your license was a big deal. Being able to drive on your own was your first step to independence and we all couldn't wait to do it. Once you had that DL and a car you were driving with your bros every chance you got. Now, as teenagers they're mostly satisfied with having mommy and daddy shepherd them around, or maybe one of the guys has a car so everyone just piles in with him. These days we're spending an unusual amount of time just teaching basic driving skills before we can even start on dynamic stuff. When I was a teenager I had a veritable mountain of speeding tickets. Ironically, all but one were from the Highway Patrol. At least once a month it was, "Do you know how fast you were going?" "Yes sir, 137." "Yeah, how'd you know that?" "Well, I had it to the firewall and that's as fast as this baby will go." By the time I showed up at the academy I was 28 years old and had that all out of my system, but two things I'd didn't have to be taught were how to shoot and how to drive the shit out of a motor vehicle. As with many things in our profession these days, difficulties stem from an overall lack of life experience on the part of the recruit.

Yep. I likely could not have been hired based on my numerous contacts with LE due to teen driving a high performance car like a teen...today known as racist cops targeting. I also got cut so,e solid slack for not being an ass, as the rules in my home were to NEVER be anything but yes sir no sir with LE. Funniest was getting grabbed totally un corked coming home from the track. Just didn't feel like climbing under a hot greasy car to re attach the exhaust system and risked the drive home wide open. The officer appreciated that I was at least racing at the track and let it go.
I don't see the car guys attracted to LE these days. I used to be furious with the hiring folks at my place for being lazy. Doing backgrounds on squeaky clean college kids who live at home and sit on play station all day was easy. The tough kids, the athletes, drag racers, shooters, and military folks were harder to do and had more junk to work through. The later made far better cops than the mommy still makes my lunch and does my laundry types.


Here's another problem: MDT use while driving.

That was a huge issue in my day.....add the cell phone and texting with it today and it is a Monster issue. As usual the brass wants folks using the technology stuff, but are totally un realistic about its use in the field and what actually happens. The last thing many career cops in positions of being in charge of toilet paper and office supplies tend to be the same ones buying computer stuff and have not a fricking clue what the hell they are doing.

[deputyG23]

If we start telling stupid cop driving stories, guns will all of a sudden become very safe items. Suffice it to say, we do a very poor job in this nation of teaching driving to anybody, let alone the police, and those of us who've done the job know how sad the firearms training usually is.

Amen, and amen.

[deputyG23]

My work is actually giving a driver in-service to our prisoner transport and civil enforcement deputies to acclimate them to the newly issued Ford Explorer police vehicles.
And, permission has been given to rewrite our firearms policy.
I am amazed and thankful...

[LSP552]

The elephant in the room is that law enforcement refuses to use their seat belts. The national average for seatbelt use is 87%. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did a survey a few years ago and the national LE use rate was around 50%. This really has two major results: officers are killed and injured at a high rate in crashes and how likely is an officer who doesn't wear a belt enforcing that law?

There is no doubt that wearing a seatbelt is the single biggest thing you can do to increased your chances of not being killed or seriously injured in a crash.

[Chuck Haggard]

Running around not wearing your seatbelt is even more stupid than the guys who used to get out of the car with the thumb break on their holster already popped.

[Chuck Haggard]

I'm completely out of my lane here and happily admit that but a two lane road in VA is a bit different than say the 405 or the 5 :D I also note that Chuck agreed with me.

You did specifically say "not responding to a call".

[Dagga Boy]

How do you know when an officer is responding to a call or not? Is there a special look or maybe a light that goes on on the car?

Unlike on COPS, many agencies are very restrictive about use of code 3 and often require approval or advisement. So......if they are hauling to a non code three call, they are essentially trying to get there in a hurry. Most folks think it is good if LEO's hurry to their crisis. It is likely a big deal to them even if it does not rate a code three response by department policy. Often, officers are rolling fast to back up another officer, especially if they are a long way away. Those do not rate a code three response unless requested, but many times you hustle just based on circumstances, tone of voice, or if dispatch loses contact with an officer. Sometimes officers have a wanted fugitive or dangerous person stopped and they do not want them alerted to the fact that the officer knows they are wanted. If the crook hears sirens, it is on and they will go to immediate fight or flight before help arrives. Because of this officers will not request a back up code three.

So......drive fast when not on calls is really a WAG.

[Coyotesfan97]

Would you rather officers do exactly the speed limit on the highway? I always thought I was being nice by not doing the CHP special of sitting at 55 mph in the number one lane just daring someone to pass me. Best way I know to create a nice big traffic jam.

Man +1 on that. It must be a Highway Patrol thing. I do 10 over on the freeway (which is withinin our policy) and there is still traffic backing up and dumbasses passing the fully marked Tahoe going 30 over.

[LittleLebowski]

You did specifically say "not responding to a call".

Absolutely. Either our crime rate is MUCH worse than reported yearly and weekly or my local LE like to haul ass and the troopers do too.

Also, non LE citizens usually suck at driving, civilian driver distraction is a real problem, and I'm pro LE. Everybody take note of the last, I mean it.

[JDM]

The elephant in the room is that law enforcement refuses to use their seat belts. The national average for seatbelt use is 87%. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did a survey a few years ago and the national LE use rate was around 50%. This really has two major results: officers are killed and injured at a high rate in crashes and how likely is an officer who doesn't wear a belt enforcing that law?

There is no doubt that wearing a seatbelt is the single biggest thing you can do to increased your chances of not being killed or seriously injured in a crash.

Why is this?

[Chuck Haggard]

Why is this?

Why aren't seat belts being work?

Because the seats are built for people not wearing Bat Belts full of gear, the buckles can be hard to get to, and the mistaken perception that one will be trapped in the car in an ambush.

[SeriousStudent]

Definitely not trying to stir up trouble, but don't we lose more officers in vehicle crashes each year, than are murdered by gunfire or knife attacks?

That always seemed like sufficient reason to me, to support Chuck's point.

And it still infuriates me that people don't understand the "move over" law we have had here in Texas for almost 10 years.

[Chuck Haggard]

Definitely not trying to stir up trouble, but don't we lose more officers in vehicle crashes each year, than are murdered by gunfire or knife attacks?

Yes. Historically over the past couple of decades more cops die via traffic than gunfire. LOTS of those are in single car wrecks.

[JR1572]

We had a kid put his unit in a ditch 2 years ago. He's a quadriplegic now. He was responding a burglary in progress. The burglars were figments of the elderly female complainant's imagination.

We had another guy kill 2 people responding to a call after deputy on scene started screaming on the radio that the BG was stabbing himself inside of a locked house and all of the deputies on scene were outside.

I can go on for days about this subject.

My unit has almost 90K on it and it's still on it's original brakes. The older I get the slower I drive.

JR1572

[JDM]

Why aren't seat belts being work?

Because the seats are built for people not wearing Bat Belts full of gear, the buckles can be hard to get to, and the mistaken perception that one will be trapped in the car in an ambush.

Thanks, Chuck. I suspected it was probably due (at least in part) to the duty rig, but didn't want to assume.

[Chuck Haggard]

Thanks, Chuck. I suspected it was probably due (at least in part) to the duty rig, but didn't want to assume.

Mostly it's due to bullshit.

[JR1572]

Mostly it's due to bullshit.

Chuck, many of them drive like asses while they're off in their personal vehicles with blue line stickers all over their vehicles.

Those stickers make my head hurt.

JR1572

[LSP552]

Mostly it's due to bullshit.

QFT! There is no legitimate reason not to wear a seatbelt. Research shows seatbelts reduce your chance of serious injury or fatality by about 50%.

[Warren Wilson]

I got called, "Mom" a lot by the guys when I was a patrol sergeant for killing pursuits. I still argue about it with administrators at the department. One of our experienced guys got into a car chase with a known bad guy over a drug deal as school was letting out through school zones. He had our last Camaro, thankfully. He got T-boned by a school bus. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured. Google "Enid Ok police chase" to watch the video. The kids and bus driver were traumatized and the officer has PTSD. Oh, and the bad guy still got away. He was arrested later. There were several supervisors and a few administrators involved and nobody killed it.

One of our young guys went to the highway patrol and became a driving instructor. He was responding to an injury accident (turned out to be non-injury) in a Camaro, lost control and crashed a stone's throw from my house. He burned.

I got into the training division this year and we are hammering them on driving. What a stupid way to die LOD. Worse, what a terrible thing to live with if you kill an innocent.

[Dagga Boy]

Chuck, many of them drive like asses while they're off in their personal vehicles with blue line stickers all over their vehicles.

Those stickers make my head hurt.

JR1572

Easy on that.....I always wearing my seatbelt, even with the stickers;).

[Chuck Haggard]

Chuck, many of them drive like asses while they're off in their personal vehicles with blue line stickers all over their vehicles.

Those stickers make my head hurt.

JR1572

It's the guys I'd spot in the marked unit going 30 over to lunch that I had the most beef with, but yeah, I agree.

[pablo]

One of the other things that rarely gets mentioned is that two man units cut down on the dangerous driving. I may drive like a raging asshole, you may drive like a raging asshole. If I'm in the passenger seat you will get one warning to chill on the driving and then you will experience physical consequences for not taking that suggestion.

Our two man units rarely get in bad wrecks and are much quicker to kill pursuits. The most obvious reason is that cover isn't having to race across the division for the sake of priority dispatching efficiency. That guy in the passenger seat has a much better feel for when things have crossed that between control and out-of-control.

[deputyG23]

One of the other things that rarely gets mentioned is that two man units cut down on the dangerous driving. I may drive like a raging asshole, you may drive like a raging asshole. If I'm in the passenger seat you will get one warning to chill on the driving and then you will experience physical consequences for not taking that suggestion.

Our two man units rarely get in bad wrecks and are much quicker to kill pursuits. The most obvious reason is that cover isn't having to race across the division for the sake of priority dispatching efficiency. That guy in the passenger seat has a much better feel for when things have crossed that between control and out-of-control.
Two man cars are a rarity, are they not? In my part of the world, they only exist for FTO situations, or in my own realm, certain prisoner and all mental detention order transports.

[Dagga Boy]

One of the other things that rarely gets mentioned is that two man units cut down on the dangerous driving. I may drive like a raging asshole, you may drive like a raging asshole. If I'm in the passenger seat you will get one warning to chill on the driving and then you will experience physical consequences for not taking that suggestion.

Our two man units rarely get in bad wrecks and are much quicker to kill pursuits. The most obvious reason is that cover isn't having to race across the division for the sake of priority dispatching efficiency. That guy in the passenger seat has a much better feel for when things have crossed that between control and out-of-control.

One of the great secrets of how folks in charge really don't give a crap. Everything about two man cars is better, especially when you have one officer to "run the box (MDT)". It is just not better for mayors and Chiefs looking at image and dollars. If somebody really wants to do "something", near universal use with federal assistance if needed for two officer cars would be it. I found it interesting that my old place immediately went to having everyone roll in two man cars temporarily after San Bernardino......sort of an acknowledgement that there is something to two man being safer......thus, why not all the time?

[jnc36rcpd]

The longer you do this job, the more you realize that the majority of "priority calls" aren't really much of an emergency. I'm quick to reduce response codes for domestic violence and threats of suicide with no actual attempt. Many other officers ask permission to reduce response to some priority calls.

I doubt we'll see two officer cars in my jurisdiction, I advocate staging for domestic violence calls. In thirty-five years, I have rarely had the Lifetime movie experience of rescuing Heather Locklear just before Armand Assante struck the fatal blow. I have had a ton of experience in domestic violence victims who weren't in particular danger and were more angry than fearful. For most domestic violence calls, there is no reason not to stand by around the block until your back-up arrives. The arrival of law enforcement escalates the possibility of violence against either the complainant or the officer. Better to have two or more officers on scene than just one. If officers realize that their shift mate is not in harm's way, it reduces the proclivity to drive fast.

[pablo]

Two man cars are a rarity, are they not? In my part of the world, they only exist for FTO situations, or in my own realm, certain prisoner and all mental detention order transports.

At my department the two-man is making a come back, not for safety but due to mismanagement. For the last five years we've cut back on buying squad cars and it's caught up with us, if we were running one-man squads we would have a fourth of a shift sitting at the station.


One of the great secrets of how folks in charge really don't give a crap. Everything about two man cars is better, especially when you have one officer to "run the box (MDT)". It is just not better for mayors and Chiefs looking at image and dollars. If somebody really wants to do "something", near universal use with federal assistance if needed for two officer cars would be it. I found it interesting that my old place immediately went to having everyone roll in two man cars temporarily after San Bernardino......sort of an acknowledgement that there is something to two man being safer......thus, why not all the time?

The only reason that one man approach is better for the admin types is that officers try to make the best of a bad situation and don't follow call response policy. The only priority dispatch has persisted this long is that officers don't follow call response policy. Officers go to priority calls by themselves, which helps response times, and their cover has to leave them hanging or drive like a bat out of hell to cover them.

According to the acdemic types the one man unit is safer, I've never gotten a legitimate explanation for why. The best I figure is that a one man is more likely to turn a blind eye to criminal activity, because he doesn't have cover. These days I don't do any proactive work when I'm a one man. I don't know if cover will be available and don't know the officer showing up is worth radio call to begin with. Not worth the risk anymore.

[HCM]

According to the acdemic types the one man unit is safer, I've never gotten a legitimate explanation for why. The best I figure is that a one man is more likely to turn a blind eye to criminal activity, because he doesn't have cover. These days I don't do any proactive work when I'm a one man. I don't know if cover will be available and don't know the officer showing up is worth radio call to begin with. Not worth the risk anymore.

The theory is two officers together have a tendency to relax a bit because they think the other guy is looking out thus reducing awareness. I don't necessarily agree, but that's the theory.

[HCM]

One of the other things that rarely gets mentioned is that two man units cut down on the dangerous driving. I may drive like a raging asshole, you may drive like a raging asshole. If I'm in the passenger seat you will get one warning to chill on the driving and then you will experience physical consequences for not taking that suggestion.

Our two man units rarely get in bad wrecks and are much quicker to kill pursuits. The most obvious reason is that cover isn't having to race across the division for the sake of priority dispatching efficiency. That guy in the passenger seat has a much better feel for when things have crossed that between control and out-of-control.

We don't do many pursuits, but I was in a few as a passenger while working a task force, simply due to the area we worked. Being a passenger in a pursuit is teh scariest thing I've ever experienced.

The SO which sponsored the task force also provided the only post academy / in-service driver training I've had in nearly 20 years.

[SLG]

[QUOTE=HCM;391438...but I was in a few as a passenger while working a task force, simply due to the area we worked. Being a passenger in a pursuit is teh scariest thing I've ever experienced. [/QUOTE]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels that way! My partner is a very good driver, but it really doesn't matter.

[John Hearne]

We don't do many pursuits, but I was in a few as a passenger while working a task force, simply due to the area we worked. Being a passenger in a pursuit is teh scariest thing I've ever experienced.

Were you never an FTO? Scary is really defined as being engaged in a high speed pursuit with a freshly minted academy graduate behind the wheel.....

[Dagga Boy]

Were you never an FTO? Scary is really defined as being engaged in a high speed pursuit with a freshly minted academy graduate behind the wheel.....

Amen

[nalesq]

We don't do many pursuits, but I was in a few as a passenger while working a task force, simply due to the area we worked. Being a passenger in a pursuit is teh scariest thing I've ever experienced.

At least if there is a passenger, someone else can hold the gauge. I remember being stunned the first time I saw deputies from a large SoCal agency racing around with one hand on the wheel, and the other hand gripping the shotgun already pulled from the rack.

[Poconnor]

I agree that riding shotgun while your the FTO can get rather exciting. Especially after they added the MDT/laptop. I was always worried that in a crash that damn computer was going to kill me. I hated trying to "response" drive while simultaneously unlocking the shotgun that was mounted horizontally behind my head on the cage. It got much better when they mounted the shotgun and the rifle vertically in between the seats with an electric release. All I had to do was hit the button and then hit the brakes really hard and the rifle would fall forward.

[voodoo_man]

True story...

We get one from a new class, black female. They put her with me. First day. Not thirty mins into overnight shift, neighboring zone gets into a pursuit with two robbery suspects, shots fired.

"Put on your seat belt and when i stop the car take it off and get your gun out."

We hit the expressway doing 100+ state police involved the whole 9, we were third or fourth car - back before the policy changed. They ended up crashing into a pole and state tased one. Good ending.

She asked to never ride with me again.

Ahhh boots.

[pablo]

Especially after they added the MDT/laptop. I was always worried that in a crash that damn computer was going to kill me.

MDT's are why so many cops end up with broken femurs in wrecks, that inside leg gets trapped and compared to bone that MDT mount is essentially an unbreakable object. At one point we switched to MDT's that mounted low, basically on top of the transmission hump, but officers started crashing into everything under the sun because they were constantly looking down to mess with the computer while driving.