A Day with the Police

[newthings]

Four small town police and fire departments train together here on the north Oregon coast. Yesterday it was EVOC refresher police driving. The full EVOC course is 100 hrs. My town has a citizens involvement program that I am privileged to participate in.
So I spent the day with the police driving Ford Crown Vics, Tahoes, and Suburbans. The course was laid out in four linked groups of turns and lane changes.
The police method of getting through a 90 to180 turn is Outside-Outside-Inside. Different from the typical NASCAR turns staying to the inside of the apex of the turn. This puts the police car in a safer place at the end of a blind turn in trade for some speed. The other teaching issue was shuffle steering that keeps the hands on their own side of the steering wheel. The grip is at 9:00 and 3:00. This is due to the airbag pushing the hands off the wheel at any other position. The drills were practicing the turns and shuffle steering, running the course with no brakes, driving the course in reverse, chasing, and at the end, a felony stop. I got to be the bad guy. I do a great belligerent old drunk with a gun (Pink plastic). The police from different departments got a chance to accommodate differences in methods for dealing with the most risky of traffic stops.
After being a passenger and driving these full sized cars and SUVs for a few hours with different police drivers, the differences were very clear. These guys were really comfortable with their own cars and my reptile brain was yelping about a roll over coming for sure. Pretty soon I was tossing the big Ford around the cones and doing the lane changes without touching the brakes.
At lunch break you know I had to drive the VX through the course. Now I know I could improve with a few more laps, but the VX is a sled in this role. The relative differences were dramatic. The tippy feeling compared to a Tahoe with police suspension was noticeable. I could not bring myself to slide the back around the turns on asphalt. Even with the S/C, I could not match the punch between turns of 429 ci in the Ford with 150,000 mi. on the odo.
At the end of the day we were all a little punchy and the cops were into one upping each other playing strange iPhone sound effects over the PA systems in full chase mode. We only rolled one tire off of the rim.
Great fun and some new check marks on my personal driving calibration.
Roy

[samneil2000]

Cool

[vt_maverick]

+1 - But your first sentence made me think this was going to be a joke instead of a story. "Four small town police and fire departments walk into a bar... er... I mean train together...."

[Osteomata]

That sounds like fantastic fun. My wife did a citizen outreach program with the Miami PD, but it involved very very limited fun time in the car. Your deal sounds much better. Was this is special invite for you or was it open to the public?

[newthings]

Each of the small beach towns advertise the Citizens Academy every year. Six or eight sessions are taught by cops, technicians and judges, from the four towns. The cities try to attract regular folks into the program to get them a real exposure as to how policing and the court system works. I am a critic of the system, but not the police. Younger people attending the community college in police science also get exposure to police work in this program. The police run a background check on everyone attending. If someone is a critic of police work in the local paper, the police have reached out to get them into the program for a dose of how things really work. We do get a day on the range using Glocks, shotguns and full auto assault weapons.
Roy

[Triathlete]

Sounds fun! Though, after reading the title I thought maybe you hooked up with Sting and the boys!

[PittVXr]

I gotta see if the local PD offers something like that here. Sounds like a blast!

[Cobrajet]

Even with the S/C, I could not match the punch between turns of 429 ci in the Ford with 150,000 mi. on the odo.

Not bustin' your chops or anything, but the Crown Vics probably had a 4.6 mod motor in them. I don't think Ford has put a 429 in anything since the early 70's. (The 460 replacement was a dog...you may have been able to outrun it!)