In this issue I continue my jihad against

[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 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.